While the Buddhist holiday of Makha Bucha is over Thursday, the usual prohibitions on nightlife may just be beginning.
Bangkok police will order all nightlife and entertainment venues, parties and events to call it a night by midnight for the next two weeks, according to a number of organizers, promoters and owners who’ve been notified by police.
UPDATE: Confusion as nightlife scene braces for difficult weeks ahead
The alleged order will apply across the board to everything in the capital, they believed, from nightclubs on Soi Sukhumvit 11 and RCA to events such as the big Maya EDM party to be staged Saturday night on army-owned property.
A nightclub owner, event promoter and party organizer independently claimed to have been informed there would be no exceptions to the midnight entertainment curfew but that it would last for about two weeks starting this weekend. They did not want to be quoted or identified.
Between midnight and 1am early Wednesday morning, groups of army and police personnel visited a number of nightlife venues to order them closed. While such visits are normal on the eve of a religious holiday, several reportedly included warnings of the closing time to be imposed.
No ready explanation was available, and a response from police was not immediately available.
However in recent weeks city police have been under pressure and under fire from the military, who’ve sought to shake up the ranks with summary transfers and accusations of negligence following army raids of illegal businesses apparently operating openly under the noses of police.
In this past week police officials were placed on a defensive footing after officers were transfered and investigated following publicized raids by soldiers of illegal casinos. Since then they’ve made a show of proactive policing, such as in Tuesday’s publicized raid of a Din Daeng district cockfighting ring.
File Photo: Eliza Frydrych
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