Responding to waves of negative publicity created by the release of a new Belgian TV drama on Pattaya, City Hall today made good on last week’s promises to crack down on scantily clad girls and bars soliciting customers from the street by closing all of downtown Pattaya’s afternoon bars.
Shortly after noon, Banglamung district officials swept through the city, ordering all the bars closed until 6 p.m. with no working talent allowed on the street. By 2 p.m., Soi 6 looked like a ghost town, with many bars closed and locked. Others, however, remained open with girls quietly poking their heads outside to alert passers-by that the bars were still open, but that all the girls were inside.
Similar notices were given to beer bars on sois 2, 3, 7 and 8. Police are expected to follow up in coming days and bars violating the new operating hours face fines of up to 50,000 baht. Officials say they are not imposing new rules, but simply enforcing entertainment licenses that stipulate bars in these areas can only operate from 6 p.m. until 1 a.m.
Hate to Say I Told You So…
The crackdown - predicted in stories online here and here - comes in direct response to the airing of Belgian TV drama “Matrioshki Matroesjka’s 2,” a fictional account of a Belgian operator of a Pattaya go-go bar who obtains talent for his club by buying young girls from families for 3,000 baht each, where girls are handcuffed to the beds of short-time rooms, families threatened when the trafficked women run away from the bars and other young women shipped back to Belgium. The first season of the show was syndicated across Europe and in Australia.
In a City Hall meeting last week, Deputy Mayor Wattana Juntanawaranon urged Pattaya to clean up its image and suggested the city should “have stricter rules for the girls, and discourage them from dressing provocatively, or actively soliciting custom.”
I blogged Sunday and Monday that almost certainly would result in a bar crackdown, with Soi 6, where scantily clad women catcall customers up and down the street.
Many Pattaya bar owners interviewed in the past few days scoffed at the notion of a crackdown, saying they’d been informed that police were told to “keep their hands off the bars” in light of Pattaya’s desperate tourist numbers.
They were obviously wrong. No elected official can simply allow well-produced, widely distributed and incendiary shows like Matroesjka’s go unanswered. They have to be seen to be doing something if only for a little while.
It’s not the first time Soi 6 has been hit with similar cover up orders. The most-recent example came about 18 months ago with the visit of some prominent Bangkok politicians to the city. The crackdown lasted three days.
I’ve been watching Matrioshki Matroesjka’s 2 (or Russian Dolls 2) here in Australia as it’s showing on SBS. We must be up to about episode 6 or 7 now in this new series. Only the first 3 or 4 episodes were shot in Thailand, after that the focus is back on Europe (as was the whole of the Matrioshki Matroesjka’s 1). Will be interesting to see what happens in Pattaya when Thailand is not so much in the show anymore.
Trust me, when the show heads back to Europe the expose on the sadder parts of organised prostitution reveal what terrible and horrifc lives some of these girls face. Of course, in Thailand, most of the girls can come and go as they like, but in Europe they can be locked in the brothel, not paid, beaten, sold to another brothel…more or less denied all civil rights.
SPOILER ALERT: the 2 main Thai girls in the show end up being shipped to Belgium and sold to 2 dirty pig farmers. They escape and are put to work in a brothel instead. But the show is now focused more on the European girls.
Sorry to rant on about this show, but it is quite good and the characters believable.
View all comments by TeenageFC
Personally it does not bother me that they are asking to clean up a bit and maybe this is better overall for the longevity of the system. Of course if this is just a sign of things to come with less trade, no booze and so on. Then we are all in for trouble.
View all comments by sideshowBOB
You have to wonder why the authorities allowed them to film in Thailand in the first place !
The Thai actresses will probably get charged with treason, or something stupid like that, for bringing the country into disrepute.
The last couple of episodes shown here in Australia have been quite explicit about corruption in the Pattaya police too ..”you have to pay the police off for this, you have to pay bribes for that ” ….bet that won’t go down too well either.
View all comments by Mike
anyone know where to download this stuff? I am using isohunt and keep coming up empty. want to check it. thanks
View all comments by sideshowBOB
Download? Do you mean there is no showtime at MajorCineplex???
View all comments by SukPsycho
@ssB,
You still using torrents?
I had the same thought so I just found season 2 eps 1-9 and started downloading it.Something else to play in the bar this week….
If you want I will burn a copy and pass it to you.
ps..UseNext..100 gigs $25 every reload, lasts me about 2 months depending on how shows are on, Now that Entourage,Smallville, Knight Rider is out I am using more…
View all comments by AnotherBarBoss
ABB - kind if like ADD
tell me more? What is usenext
would love a copy. trade for a beer ? A case of beer laos?
View all comments by sideshowBOB
Something else to play in the bar this week…. Strange choice, but the 1st series was quite good.
View all comments by Wenthworth
If soi 6 really had to stay closed until 6pm, it’s not that there wouldn’t be anywhere to get some daytime fun but rather that a quintessentially Pattaya experience would lost. The soi 6 walk on a hot afternoon cannot be matched anywhere, nor can “relaxing” with a cold beer and an active, tactile hot girl within minutes of entering a bar.
View all comments by Brewsterbudgen
ssB,
It’s the same idea as giganews but you don’t need to have your own ‘reader’ as it has a full functioning reader/image viewer/file builder /re-par and a few more choice items. this also connects to giganews servers and others automatically.there is a free account to try on there site,good for testing the software first.
When the beer lao does finally get here- you still got a case on me anyway.
View all comments by AnotherBarBoss
abb - is there going to be any public disclosure around the BL debacle? Putting quite a dent in the bar biz and the reputation of the brew in Thailand.
View all comments by sideshowBOB
I dont see the big deal with soi6
Dunno bout you guys, but everywhere I go in Thailand, chicks (and a lot of guys) scream “Sexy young man, come fuck my ass now”
Siam Paragon
RCA
Buying credit at the 7/11
Working on my gunns at the gym
Reading upside down books in Ramkamhpheng Library
When im alone with BBB
THROB bar in Suriwong
Baffles me the appeal of it all
View all comments by Young Penfold
Looking for an afternoon shag in Pattaya? Just walk around making eye contact with idle women.Surely you will find a taker. It is Pattaya after all.
View all comments by Mr Right
@ ssB
From what I was told the delivery vehicles were stopped and after some deliberations the cost of the original shipment would have had major increases on the per case cost for us, so it was sent back to its origin.
The next is coming shortly.
ps: I got 10 eps of that show and will send 1 to you tomorrow night…There formatted in DiVx / Avi.
View all comments by AnotherBarBoss
I’d hugely appreciate a copy or — simply — if you’d YouTube one of the most inflamatory Pattaya scenes so I could post it.
View all comments by Pattaya Ghost
abb - good info. would it not be better if they, the folks bringing the beer in, sent an email or letter around letting bar owners know? BL reputation taking a big hit right now and customers seem to think it is the fault of the bars serving it. some damage control is needed in my opinion.
sounds great on the flicks.
View all comments by sideshowBOB
@SSB
http://www.torrentz.com/search?q=+Matrioshki+Matroesjka
View all comments by fanta
For all TV
http://eztv.it/frontpage.php
View all comments by fanta
ssB,
I will pass that on to them again but the rep for each place should be in contact with there bars.
Will see what I can do.
I got that download last night , will get one to you tonight.
View all comments by AnotherBarBoss