Bars can reopen in Rawai Phuket.. but not like we hoped

[Thaiger]

The moment we have all been waiting for has finally arrived! After mounting pressure and a meeting today with Aroon Solos, the mayor of Rawai, Phuket, bars, pubs and entertainment venues will be allowed to reopen. Just without any of the things that bring customers. The mayor of Rawai met with the Muang District Chief and a select group of local bar owners in the Rawai Municipality office yesterday to discuss a solution for the hardship entertainment and nightlife venues have experienced over the last 16 months of the Covid-19 pandemic. These venues have been the hardest hit by Covid-19 […]

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[Objectivance]

I had my doubts initially, but seeing that they're cracking down on colored lights, it's quite clear that logic has finally surfaced and things will be sorted quite proper-like. 

[Graham]

Oh for goodness sake just stay shut and forget this idiot even spoke, what is the current staff status for bars / nightclubs etc. are any back in Phuket, are they vaccinated ? If they are not in Phuket already then how are owners supposed to staff these venues ?

[TobyAndrews]

Tragic, but the best policy is to stay shut. 

There are few tourists anyway, so go back to fishing and farming foe another year. Please, foreigners appreciate your charity, but you are were losing your customers in 2019.

Give it up. 

[HolyCowCm]

Ridiculous. Can’t even have a provided working companion to sit down with you or the atmosphere of a pub with food. Restaurants are for come in eat and leave.  I wonder if they will still allow seating looking out? 

[JohninDublin]

So all those pole and table dancers will have to masquerade as guests of the customers if they want a customer? Do you think the authorities will notice that they are all wearing schoolgirl/nurse outfits? Or this is the 4th different customer in one night that a girl has had a meal with? 

Edited July 15, 2021 by JohninDubin
Punctuation

[Dedinbed]

And no Saturday Night Fever or Somebody get me a Doctor on the P A system .. 

[EdwardV]

So basically if a bar wants to reopen, it needs to become a restaurant. You are asking a tiger to change it's stripes. The rule the staff can't sit with customers will clearly lead to a lot of creative solutions. 

[Bluesofa]

6 minutes ago, Dedinbed said:

And no Saturday Night Fever or Somebody get me a Doctor on the P A system .. 

No coloureds allowed, but 'standard lighting options'.   Have to assume no black-lights allowed either, so must be white-ish?
That's pretty racists, surely.

[Dedinbed]

4 minutes ago, Mike-Hunt said:

No coloureds allowed, but 'standard lighting options'.   Have to assume no black-lights allowed either, so must be white-ish?
That's pretty racists, surely.

Glitter balls are probably turned off as well .. 

[Dedinbed]

14 minutes ago, EdwardV said:

So basically if a bar wants to reopen, it needs to become a restaurant. You are asking a tiger to change it's stripes .

Or a zebra to take the stripey pyjamas off .. 

[AdvocatusDiaboli]

The the PM will see the Governor has circumvented this No Bar restriction. He may just go back to no alcohol full stop like the first lock down …… no alcohol sales in bars, restaurants, 7/11, supermarket etc etc etc. 

 

[Bluesofa]

27 minutes ago, Dedinbed said:

Glitter balls are probably turned off as well .. 

I bet he has very little opportunity to use them now (with the emphasis on the very little).

[vlad]

53 minutes ago, JohninDubin said:

So all those pole and table dancers will have to masquerade as guests of the customers if they want a customer? Do you think the authorities will notice that they are all wearing schoolgirl/nurse outfits? Or this is the 4th different customer in one night that a girl has had a meal with? 

No they just need an Apron lol.

[Bluesofa]

26 minutes ago, Dedinbed said:

Or a zebra to take the stripey pyjamas off .. 

Yeah, we all know a zebra is just a horse wearing pyjamas.

[JohninDublin]

When you read these reports, it's difficult to believe to believe that the country has not been taken over in some Marxist coup. I am sure that Groucho, Chico and Harpo did a better job with Freedonia.

[MrNovax]

I wonder how far they can push all this nonsense until people wake up and start pushing back.  I would be on the first plane to Thailand if they would drop all the restrictions.  Instead i spend my money back home where we are operating like normal and you'd think its 2019.

[Robert2020]

this is just ludacris... over a year since quarantine started and Thailand is enforcing laws like these.
I was on the verge of buying a condo in Phuket before COVID broke out because I loved it there, but let's be honest, this COVID thing isn't going anywhere, and there will be another break out of something else in the future. Owning property in Thailand is no longer an option I'm considering. 

[SickBuffalo]

4 hours ago, MrNovax said:

I would be on the first plane to Thailand if they would drop all the restrictions.

The tragedy is that they could safely do this today, drop all restrictions for fully vaccinated tourists, if they would simply redefine fully vaccinated as meaning fully vaccinated with the 3 effective vaccines only: Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca.

They also need to accept that, for the time being, they cannot make exceptions for children, even if that means sacrificing the family market.

 

Edited July 15, 2021 by SickBuffalo

[Grumpyoldman]

Don't you see? The government is using C19 to get rid of girly bars. 

 

They will continue with unrealistic restrictions on bars until thy are all bankrupt and their licenses expired and rewrite the licensing rules quietly so they never reappear.

 

Thats why they won't support bars and their staff in this crisis they have created.

[Ttalk]

Bars have been open for a few weeks at least. I drove through the area a few weeks ago and all were open except for a section by the yellow bank with katoey bars.  

I drove through last night and now everything is open.

[Stonker]

6 hours ago, SickBuffalo said:

The tragedy is that they could safely do this today, drop all restrictions for fully vaccinated tourists, if they would simply redefine fully vaccinated as meaning fully vaccinated with the 3 effective vaccines only: Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca.

They also need to accept that, for the time being, they cannot make exceptions for children, even if that means sacrificing the family market.

 

Only if they also had similarly fully vaccinated locals.

 

The problem isn't the tourists, it's tourism since you can't have tourism without bars, no masks, no resrictions, etc  -  and you can't have that without vaccination.

 

It's hardly a difficult equation to balance:

 

no vaccination = no factories, no tourism, no output, no schools, no economy.

 

Unfortunately, if you've stuffed up and relied totally on a manufacturer that can't supply and a vaccine that doesn't work, there's also no re-wind button.

[think-and-ask]

1. "if existing viruses" go around fast, most people in the world, have viruses already. so, we have a,
herd immunity ( 7-9 0% of all people in 1 country, recovered, possible without symptoms ),
in the world, after 1.5 year for sure.

1.2 viruses are not killer viruses, otherwise, most infected people, would not recover.

2. and "if" a virus-form is new, and could, take time to give herd immunity,
then self-thinking people will say, same goes for making vaccines. :)

3. again. most people, never really, trusted the government and news with experts,
and not think ( anymore ), those viruses are dangerous, because not know personally,
corona virus deaths, except of old sick people, who died soon, on that-health care, based life.

3.2 "if" somebody wants to help,
give education /true knowledge, starts with take self-responsibility ( article 1, civil rights, ohc hr ),
in a healthy body, without panic views.

[SickBuffalo]

6 minutes ago, Stonker said:

Only if they also had similarly fully vaccinated locals.

The problem isn't the tourists, it's tourism since you can't have tourism without bars, no masks, no resrictions, etc  -  and you can't have that without vaccination.

The reality is that very few of those considering the sandbox were real tourists. They were mostly unofficial expats who somehow wound up outside Thailand when the shutters came down and are now desperately trying to get back to their loved ones.

Alternatively, as we saw in the case of unfortunate German Stephanie, some are people desperate, after a year and a half of lockdowns, to escape their home countries and start a new life somewhere new.

All these people would like to get into Thailand with as little hassle and cost as possible. Ask any of them and most will tell you they would have been quite happy to take the risk and return even before they were vaccinated. The reason why Thailand (and most other countries) are insisting that these "tourists' be vaccinated is to protect the Thai population, not to protect the foreigner.

Neither do these foreigners give a damn about the bars or the masks and other restrictions. As they do happen, now, to be fully vaccinated, most also don't care about the vaccination status of the local population.
 

16 minutes ago, Stonker said:

no vaccination = no factories, no tourism, no output, no schools, no economy.

Well, let's imagine if Thailand did drop all restrictions for fully vaccinated tourists. That is when you start to see actual, real, money-squandering tourists returning in large numbers to Thailand. If, as I suggest, the Thai government insists that they be fully vaccinated with one of the three effective vaccines, they present a negligible risk to the Thai public.

Would such tourists care about the risk to them? Absolutely not.

Could the government arrange to open facilities for those fully vaccinated tourists despite the workers being vaccinated with Chinese tap water, and would this result in no risk to the tourists and no risk to the workers? Absolutely.

Bingo, you switch back on a significant slice of your economy, and that's a good start.
 

21 minutes ago, Stonker said:

Unfortunately, if you've stuffed up and relied totally on a manufacturer that can't supply and a vaccine that doesn't work, there's also no re-wind button.

Agreed. That decision was made in 2015, long before the virus emerged, when the generals decided to throw in with the CCP.

[JohninDublin]

I can understand the rationale behind the closure of Sweetie after just one day. People who are drinking are going to be careless about social distancing etc. But if you only have one bar open, that's where all the drinkers etc, are going to be so social distancing is dead before it has even started.

Why not open a number of bars. Remove enough stools to ensure social distancing in each, and order that all customers be seated. Only those who come in as a group, may sit as a group. If there are no adverse consequences, and numbers increase, open a few more bars. You do have to wonder just what impact the continued closure of the bars has had on the Sandbox scheme?

I still haven't cancelled my flight, but if Phuket continues to resemble Mecca on a Friday during Ramadan, that will be the decider for me.