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GaySacGuy
I just received a phone call advising me that all the Farang in Wild, Wild West without a passport in their possession were detained/arrested/taken to jail??? Not sure which, but definitely not good. It is 10:30 p.m. in Pattaya, apparently this just happen this evening. Also rumor of two or three bars being closed, but no confirmantion. Can anyone either confirm or deny this information?? I sure hope it is some kind of mistake, but the way things go, you never know!

painai

Yes, I was there, thank goodness I carry a laminated copy of my passport (which includes the first page and copy of my visa), only 2 of the customers, myself and a Japanese tourist who had his passport, were not taken away in a pick up by the (I assume) Bangkok police. The police came in only questioning the customers, and those without id were rounded up, searched, questioned and taken away. About ten or twelve all together were taken away. It really looked sad to see the elderly farangs who had trouble walking trying to get in the pickup. Moral of the story, carry your id!

from Sawatdee Gay Thailand
campuscat

he farang grapevine is humming tonite in Pattaya/Jomtien. So much is happening so quickly I will just touch on the issues and
let others fill in the details as the facts become better known and clearer in the next day or two.

In Sunee Plaza, the sign people were busy changing the name of Banana to Krazy Pub but tonite the beer bar next to Krazy Dragon was shut down tight and the owner (or part owner) in some sort of detention for underage porno activities. There is a write up on him on one of the pattaya news websites and I am sure someone can provide the link.
K-Boys is closed for one month for issues stemming from the recent police raids.
Holiday Boys formerly Butts Boy is closed due to issues with its lease.
Euro Boys is closed for an indefinite time period but at least a few months for reasons of the new owner.

In Boyztown Pattayaland sois, police were very active tonite and it is reported on another site that those customers
lacking passports or equivalent IDs were taken by the police right out of the bar. This is the first time I have heard of the
police activities being aimed at the farangs including the Asian customers from Japan etc.
Bars were told to close early on other Pattayaland sois because of improper liquor licenses etc. and the pressure is on..
I cannot confirm the names of the bars involved as I only have scattered information from the other website and a couple
of telephone calls but I am sure others can fill in the info as it comes out..

These type of things tend to last for months and only a fool with go out with his passport or equivalent ID and take a boy without
an ID card for the time being.

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Thanks for the heads up! I must admit in 15 years I've never carried my passport with me (in case I loose it). I do carry photo driving licence which is at least photo ID, but guess I'll have to carry passport from now.

I'm going to Pattaya / Jomtien tomorrow for about 10 days. Any sign of police activity in Jomtien?

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May have been a one off. Situation normal at Kaos (cocks out) and Wild West and no one seems concerned.

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I wish I had a buck for every "crackdown" I've seen. People who don't know how Thailand works get all up in arms. The rest of us just wait a couple days.

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Despite our revered Moderator's scorning these reports, I feel that this is something new. It is the first time that I have heard of customers in a gay go-go bar being hauled off to the Police station for not carrying Identification. Even in straight bars it is very rare. I can only remeber it happening at Q bar during the Purachai regime when about 150 farangs were carted off and fined 100 baht each.

I had friends in Wild West bar who were interviewed and they and others that night were given a ticking off for not carrying an ID. The Police told them that a photocopy of the passport and visas etc was OK.

It is Thai law that foreigners carry their passport with them at all times. Even the Police can see that this is impractical as carrying a valuable document around at times like on the beach or during Songkran would be foolish. I have had copies of my passport main pages reduced to credit card size and laminated. I carry current photocopies of my Visa, entry stamp, arrivals and departures paper and 90 days reporting paper. I suggest that everyone do something similar,

I don't blame people for getting up in arms at the persistant raiding of gay and straight bars in Thailand. Why don't they use other methods to control the perceived problems, particularly the pederasty, instead of routinely damaging the tourist business and achieving very little other than a bit of publicity for the Police.

I have been waiting for a lot more than 'a couple of days' for the bar closing times to return to the laissez faire times of old.

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Thai law doesn't say anything about foreigners having to carry passports. It says that EVERYONE -- Thai, foreign, or Martian -- must carry ID. For Thais, it means a Thai ID card. For others, it means the only internationally recognized piece of government-issued identification that shows you are where you are legally: in other words, a passport.

As for closing times, it has always swung back and forth -- even in the "good old days" (whenever those were), and still today -- depending on how much corruption was being allowed (more corruption = later opening times, so I'm not sure that's a good thing to wish for; it would be much better to wish for a change in the law).

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About four months ago I was stopped by a police officer in Bangkok while walking to a boat pier! First time in over 10 years of living here that something like that happened. He and his buddy were doing the usual traffic stop (pay us money!) near a U-turn under an overpass. Must have been a slow day extracting cash from motorbike drivers. This idiot cop demanded to look in my bag/briefcase, which I let him do. I patiently waited 2 or 3 minutes while the cop looked at every single item in my bag. He must have been disappointed not to find drugs so he asked to see my passport. I told him, sorry, it's at work, along with my work permit. But I did have photocopies of all the revelant pages, which seemed to satisfy him. But the whole experience was very annoying and left a bad impression with me. As soon as the cop had seen my papers I dismissed myself and kept walking. He seemed surprised that I walked away in the middle of my interrogation, but my patience had run out and I was afraid I would say or do something I would regret if I hung around and gave him time to ask me more questions or search my possessions.
As for this Pattaya bar report, it doesn't surprise me. I would guess similar "raids" will happen soon in Bangkok. The current regime is doing all it can to ruin tourism.

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Less widely publicised, last month Pattaya police swooped on Sunnee Plaza and took away around 100 underage boys, closing a number of bars (mentioned by Wowpow). A week later the boys were back at play/work, with appropriate deals being done. The Thai system is alive and well !

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Short of putting all those boys in jail, which I don't think anyone advocates, they're just going to keep coming back.

Anyway, the root problem isn't the boys, it's the very adult tourists who come from around the world to abuse them. Perhaps police harassment of the adults would have more lasting positive effect.

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The problem isn't the kids and it isn't the adults. There is no compulsory school system and no other forms of training for these kids. There are no social services to help when there is no food or medicine for them. There is no assistance for their parents so that they can help keep the kids at home. Most time the kids are put out to fend for themselves and then made to send what little money they get back home. It isn't a problem where any one segment of society can be blamed. Would it be better if the kids got into drug dealing or stealing and mugging people? There isn't an easy solution here. It falls back on the thai gov't to solve these problems. Lets not point fingers here.

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It's a comlex issue, that's for sure. But there are probably 75 countries in the world that are are more fucked-up social services-wise than Thailand, and they don't have anything resembling Sunee Plaza.

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Lack of imagination? No lack of sexophobia?

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I also think it's unfair to label any consensual sex acts between foreigners and teenage hustlers as "abuse."
Words like "molestation" and "abuse" are wide open to interpretation. They are the types of words that the anti-sex/religious wackos love to use in order to rally their troops. Of course people are going to be outraged at the thought of "young children" (define that one) being "abused."
That said, some of the youngsters I've seen running around Sunee Plaze over the years are, I think, far too young to be selling themselves. People have different standards of what's "acceptable" and morally correct, so I don't want to launch into a debate on that. But I think we have to be careful about using vague and inflammatory words.

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People have different standards, sure, but we all must abide by the law. And, according to the law (basically), anyone under 18 is cannot give "consent". Thus, sex with them is by definition non-consensual: i.e., statutory rape.

I'm not saying that I agree the minimum age of consent should be 18, but it is what it is.

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