Pattaya - back in business

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Gaybutton
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Pattaya - back in business

Post by Gaybutton »

The following applies only to Pattaya and the Chonburi province:

The good news is the bars, along with most other venues, will be able to reopen on Monday, February 1. The standard "new normal" restrictions will still be in place and all venues must close at 11:00pm.

I have reliable information that Winner Boy bar will reopen, meaning whichever bars choose to reopen, can reopen. I hope there are still enough boys left in Pattaya to work in the bars.

I don't understand the logic of everything having to close at 11:00pm, but at least they can open at all. That's better than nothing. I wonder how soon we will be reading reports about venues busted for violating the closing time . . .

I have not yet found any news about whether the order to close all the hotels has changed. Unless further information is published, I would think the order still stands. If you are not in Pattaya, but wish to go to Pattaya, I suggest checking with your hotel of choice.

The police checkpoints will be canceled, meaning inter-provincial travel will be permitted without the need for special paperwork and permission. However, permission may still be needed to enter and leave other provinces.

Now, let's keep fingers crossed in hopes there won't be yet another Covid outbreak, closing everything yet again.
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Chonburi: Checkpoints cancelled, bars, pubs, swimming pools given green light to reopen

As of Monday (1 Feb) entertainment venues in the city, such as bars, pubs and clubs, can re-open and serve alcohol but strict social distancing measures must be in place and venues must close by 11pm. The same measures also apply to restaurants, it was announced late on Friday.

Gyms, fitness centres, massage parlours, cinemas, water parks and swimming pools, including those at condominiums can re-open, as can almost all other venues that had previously been ordered closed.

Convenience stores such as 7-Eleven and Family Mart can open between 5am and 11pm.

On Saturday morning, it was announced that all 17 checkpoints throughout the province will also stop and there is no longer a requirement for people to quarantine themselves on arrival in the province. Those travelling outside the province no longer need to seek permission from the local authority.

Elsewhere, Koh Si Chang is also open to visitors.

https://forum.thaivisa.com/topic/120393 ... -to-reopen
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Chonburi Public Relations release new order around easing Covid-19 measures and closures, effective Monday, February 1st

By Adam Judd

30 January, 2021

Around 11:00 P.M. tonight, January 29th, 2021, the Chonburi Public Relations department released awaited orders detailing what they would allow an opening for this upcoming Monday, February 1st, 2021.

(Editor’s note: As of Press Time the Royal Gazette order for the announced changes the CCSA made today has NOT yet been released. This is expected to be effective Monday, February 1st also and is expected to include the official change of Chonburi from a red zone to an orange zone and removal of travel restrictions requiring paperwork from district offices and essential reasons to travel to and from Chonburi.)

1. Koh Si Chang will re-open for visitors after being previously closed.

2. Entertainment venues (bars, clubs, pubs, gentlemen clubs, karaoke, etc.) may open until 11:00 P.M. Proper social distancing measures, Thai Chana check-in, temperature checks, hand sanitizing, and mask-wearing should take place. Live music is ok, no dancing.

3. Restaurants may serve for dine-in customers from 6:00 A.M. to 11:00 P.M. Alcohol can be sold during legal hours until 11:00 P.M. Social distancing measures and other cautions must take place, same as entertainment venues. Live music is ok, no dancing. This includes all places to eat like markets, food courts, etc.

4. 24-hour stores, like 7-11’s and Family Marts, may open from 5:00 A.M. to 11:00 P.M. They must still be closed from 11:00 P.M. to 5:00 A.M. This is designed to encourage people to go home after other venues close.

5. No activities can be organized with over 300 people without prior permission from Chonburi officials. Banquet halls, seminars, conference rooms, etc. can re-open for under this amount.

6. Essentially basically everything still closed (with the exception of chicken fighting stadiums and other animal fighting places) can open including- Swimming pools, amusement parks, water parks, floating markets, amulet markets, snooker and pool, fitness centers and gyms, arcades, internet cafes, bowling and other entertainment places, soapies, spas, cinemas, nurseries, and theaters.

7. Everything previously allowed to open, like malls, parks, beaches, etc. are still open.

8. This order is only for Chonburi. Other provinces may have different rules. Chonburi has NO quarantine requirements for domestic visitors. (IE. You can enter the province from any other part of Thailand without needing to quarantine.).

9. There will still be checkpoints, however, these are standard Covid-19 checkpoints looking for the illegal transportation of migrant workers and performing temperature and ID checks.

10. This was all correct as of this evening and the time of publishing, however, is subject to change due to an often fluid situation.

https://thepattayanews.com/2021/01/30/c ... ruary-1st/
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Re: Pattaya - back in business

Post by Gaybutton »

I've been thinking about the 11:00pm closing time for virtually everything. Considering so many venues had been forced to close, I wouldn't complain about the mandated closing time, but since nothing I have been able to find explains the reasoning, now it's on my "I Don't Get It" list.

I have no idea why 11:00pm is the magic number, but there it is. While Pattaya is not under a curfew, it might as well be. If everything has to close at that hour, there's no place to go.

I suppose a silver lining on that cloud is 11:00pm is probably quitting time for the boys. That makes it kind of easy to just wait outside and find a willing young gent(s) to take to your room and continue with a small private party . . .
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Re: Pattaya - back in business

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At the time of this post it is just after 8:00am, February 1 in Thailand. Tonight is the night the bars can reopen. I won't be going personally, so I am hoping those of you who do go will let us know which bars did reopen and how well populated they are with boys and customers.
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Re: Pattaya - back in business

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Gaybutton wrote: Mon Feb 01, 2021 8:06 am I won't be going personally, so I am hoping those of you who do go will let us know which bars did reopen and how well populated they are with boys and customers.
Boyztown
Dead. Went there at 7:30 pm, no sign of life except for lights on at Scandic massage which probably was open. The rest of Boyztown in darkness.
A-bomb and Dreamboys closed in the nearby sois. If they were to open later in the evening there would probably have been some people there preparing, but not. Only X-boys open.

Sunee plaza
All 6 bars that were open before the latest lockdown, did reopen today. I saw customers in all of them. They are: Winnerboys, The One bar, Euroboys, "Green chair bar", Diamond bar and Niceboys.

Winnerboys had 6 boys and during my stay 9 customers.
Niceboys 12 boys shirtless in jeans. During my stay there were 3 customers.

It was a good reopening for Sunee.

Supertown
The area was busy with boys and customers. I counted 16 open boybars, 2 cafės, 3 restaurants and 3 boymassageshops within the Supertown/Jomtien complex area.
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Re: Pattaya - back in business

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Thank you SP55. I'm glad you made the rounds in all three gay bar areas. Doesn't seem like much of a start to me, but maybe things will get better over the next few days.

Barry Kenyon made observations too. I fully agree with him about the outrageously overpriced drinks in Boyztown, which is the reason I stopped going to Boyztown years ago. If the bars that did open are still charging those kinds of prices and think they can still get away with it, I believe they've got another thing coming.

In my opinion, given the current situation, Pattaya is not exactly overflowing with holiday makers who don't mind paying high prices. In case the bar owners haven't noticed, every one of Thailand's efforts and gimmicks to restore farang tourist numbers have been utter failures. The bars need to figure out the only way they have even a chance of making it is to make themselves attractive to the expat population. Expats are the only real support the bars are going to get for the foreseeable future and still charging high prices is definitely not the way to get them into the bars.

This is no time to try to be greedy. Bar owners, I have always been supportive of the gay bar scene. I have always permitted you to advertise on my board free of charge or any obligation to me. I still do that. But quite frankly, any bar continuing to try to charge high prices, in all honesty I don't give a damn whether you survive or not. High drink prices and high off fees - if you're doing that I'd say your chances of survival are somewhere between zero and none and if you end up in the toilet because of it, I, for one, will not need a crying towel . . .
________________________________________________

Ghost town Pattaya mostly snubs booze reopening night

By Barry Kenyon

February 2, 2021

Maybe the city has grown weary of successive entertainment shutdowns, lockdowns and evasive tactics such as drinking wine in tea cups to avoid occasional police surveillance. But the most recent reopening of niteries on February 1 – with closure at 11 pm sharp – was hardly A Night to Remember, except perhaps in the forlorn sense of the 1958 Titanic film.

The most famous centers did not even try. Walking Street did not bother to switch on its latest and brightest neo-Pattaya entrance sign which is hardly surprising. The diggers are already there, making huge holes in preparation for the six months’ program of burying overhead cables. The only music to be heard in a deserted street came from a TV in a 24-hour convenience store which was appropriately playing the horror movie Frankenhooker.

In nearby Boyztown, once the hub of Pattaya’s gay scene until it shot itself in the foot with overpriced drinks, there is a total blackout reminiscent of the Liverpool dock road during the Blitz. In an area which houses several hotels and umpteen bars and clubs, there was only one lit up on opening night: X Boys had a skeleton staff but no customers. “If nobody turns up by 10.00 pm we’re going home,” the pessimistic doorman told me.

Sexy Soi 6 in North Pattaya was doing rather better. Most of the bars were open even though staff outnumbered customers by 10 to one, 20 to one in some places. This was once the street where angels feared to tread, but tonight it would have been safe to bring along your maiden aunt. The hostesses at the Corner Bar confided that they were expecting a boom in European visitors soon as people over there wanted to escape the virus. Sadly, they don’t take their news from the BBC or CNN.

Onwards to the Jomtien Complex, which has replaced Boyztown as the gay mecca, which was the busiest of all the venues visited. Virtually all 15 or so open air bars were operational (nightclubs are not permitted there) for the first time since Christmas. The customers were mostly elderly European retirees engrossed in deep conversation with their fellow nationals. The main onsite restaurant, the popular Yupins, was quite busy and the immaculate transvestite stars at The Venue cabaret show were arriving in style on the back of motorbikes.

Perhaps the main beneficiaries of the reopening will be the small bars in residential neighborhoods all over Greater Pattaya where expats and Thais living locally like to gather to chat and eat cheaply after dark. The long winding road known as Soi Khao Thalo stretches from central Pattaya to the outer reaches of what is still called The Dark Side. About half the 100 or so bars and cafes were open and the total number of customers far exceeded those in the more famous nitery districts.

It is certainly the expats who are keeping Pattaya alive at the moment. With many European countries limiting flights to within the European Union, the UK deeming it “illegal” to take a vacation for fear of spreading the virus and monitored quarantine at both ends of a journey fast becoming the norm worldwide, there will be no triumphant cavalry of international holidaymakers arriving in Thailand for many months. There might be 15,000 expats in Greater Pattaya at the moment, mostly retirees and work permit holders, but ignoring the multitude of local guest workers from Myanmar and Cambodia on minimum wages. It’s a sobering business fact that the number of international arrivals and big spenders won’t be swelling any time soon.

https://www.pattayamail.com/latestnews/ ... ght-342133
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Re: Pattaya - back in business

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Does anyone have updates for the current bar scene? I have not gone to any bars nor do I intend to any time soon, but from what I have been reading and hearing, the reopenings have not been exactly spectacular. From what I can tell, not many farang are going and not very many boys in the go-go bars. I have not heard anything about boy numbers in the beer bars or Jomtien Complex.

If the bar owners think all they need to do to attract customers is to hang out an "Open" sign, I hope they think again before the next sign that goes up is a "For Sale" sign.

If anyone can fill us in, please do.
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Re: Pattaya - back in business

Post by gerefan »

Gaybutton wrote: Thu Feb 04, 2021 1:13 pm. I have not heard anything about boy numbers in the beer bars or Jomtien Complex.
I was in Jomtien Complex last night (Wednesday 3 February). Arrived about 8 o’clock and left well after midnight. The complex was as busy as I have seen it in a long time.
Sat in the At Home Bar until the Bingo started. It was full.
Then visited Doubleshot at about 9 pm and it was just getting going.
Sat in Sun Bar from about 10 pm until very late! Bar very busy and manager told me it was even busier the night before.
All bars had adequate boys.
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Re: Pattaya - back in business

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gerefan wrote: Thu Feb 04, 2021 10:49 pm Sat in Sun Bar from about 10 pm until very late!
According to the rule relaxation, the bars are supposed to close at 11:00. How late was very late? Aren't the bars complying with the 11:00pm closing time rule?
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Re: Pattaya - back in business

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I'd rather not say in public ...TiT!
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Re: Pattaya - back in business

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What I will say in public is I hope they know what they're doing. And customers also better know what they're doing. In case nobody noticed, many news articles have clearly pointed out that when bars are raided for violations, the customers - including farang - are arrested too and some are being deported.

I suggest to be on the safe side, until and unless the closing hours are officially extended beyond 11:00pm, then leave at 11:00pm even if the bars are remaining open - unless you want to risk being caught up in a raid. I would not advise dismissing it as nothing serious.

Thailand is not taking kindly to foreigner scofflaws.
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