Police descended upon Patong Beach on Tuesday night to seize 178 sunbeds, 37 chairs, and 53 umbrellas piled along the edge of the beach. They announced owners must come and retrieve them from the police station – if they dare, writes The Phuket News’ Nattapat Tuarob.
Most of the seized beach furniture appears to belong to local business people trying to skate around the complex new rules.
Police announced that individuals coming to the police station to collect their own personal sunbeds could do so, and indeed, 15 tourists did so today, each claiming two sunbeds.
They were accompanied by kind-hearted citizens who denied being beach sunbed operators.
Police have already explained that they suspect the remaining furniture belongs to beach operators and will never be reclaimed. After all, any Thai who does come to claim multiple chairs will be deemed an illegal beach operator, fined THB1,000, and their stuff won’t be returned anyway.
Sounds like a great deal.
This already happened to five people that night who were found to own piles of chairs on the beach – each was fined THB1,000, and each understood their chairs will not be returned.
Pol. Lt. Col. Akanit Danpitaksat, Kathu Police crime suppression chief, explained, “Under the new beach management rules, sunbed businesses are not allowed on public land.”
“I went to Patong beach yesterday evening and saw many sunbeds on the beach. We found many places where sunbeds had been piled up on the beach – piles of 20 or 30 sunbeds with covers over them. So our officers seized them and brought them back to the police station.”
“Some belonged to tourists. That is fine. But what we are doing is preventing business people from encroaching again on public beaches – some of them are still trying to carry on business like before.”
“If Thai people appear to reclaim the sunbeds we will charge them [with making a profit from public space]. But this morning, some tourists came and told me that they left their sunbeds with business operators, so we checked whether the sunbeds belonged to them or not.”
“The problem is that some are elderly couples and could not carry the sunbeds to and from between hotel and beach. Some business operators seized this opportunity to take care of the sunbeds – but they bought their own and added them to the pile so that they could rent them out.”
“When we seized the sunbeds, [the operators] claimed that all the sunbeds belonged to the tourists.”
“Some business operators charged the tourists THB20 per sunbed [to leave them in a pile]. That is not allowed.”
“We won’t charge the tourists if they come to get sunbeds back. If anyone tells them that they are not allowed to do so, they should tell the police.”
Story: The Phuket News
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