SP55 wrote: ↑Thu May 07, 2020 10:47 pm
And why even wait for October and not just say you will open as soon as the authorities allow bars to reopen?
Obviously I can't speak for him, but I have my own ideas and guesses. I doubt the bars are going to simply be given permission to reopen and that's all there is to it. Under the circumstances I think all the bars, if and when they are allowed to reopen, are going to have to reopen under stringent guidelines. I doubt Eros would have been able to simply move from Sunee Plaza to Boyztown and operate just as was done in Sunee Plaza even if the virus had never happened.
But now that the virus has happened, I can't imagine any of the bars are going to be able to operate as an "anything goes" bar, at least not for a long time. I'm hoping Eros will eventually open and I hope eventually Eros might even be able to be at least very close to what it had been, but I'm not expecting anything any time soon. Also, I know some of the boys who had worked at Eros and several have returned to their home towns. I'm still in touch with a couple of those boys and both have told me they have no plans to return to Pattaya, let alone Eros, whether the bar reopens or not. Just how many of the Eros boys will return and/or how many "new" boys will be ok with behaving as the boys did in Sunee Plaza - that too remains to be seen.
I think it's a "which came first, the chicken or the egg" situation. Would it be prudent for Eros, or any of the boy go-go bars, to reopen before tourists start returning or are they going to wait and see whether there will be a tourist influx and then decide whether to reopen?
Anyone knows the bars can't make any money unless they are open. But even when they are open, the still can't make any money unless the customers come. Will customers come if the bars have to operate under stringent social distancing rules, along with all the other rules that might be imposed? Will the boys even be willing to work in the bars if their chances of getting offs are essentially decimated by social distancing rules? All that remains to be seen.
Another question I haven't even seen addressed. Will the gay go-go bars remain boy dancers only? I won't be surprised if some of the owners try a new trick - a combination of both boy and girl dancers - something for everybody types of bars. As far as I know, nothing like that has ever been tried anywhere in Thailand.
We're just going to have to wait and see what happens, not only with Eros, but with all the bars.