Homepage > Thai Youth Issues > Ban youths in latenight bars: poll

Date: June 22, 2001, The Nation

Most members of the public and the police think people under 20 should be barred from nighttime entertainment venues, according to results of an Abac poll released yesterday.

Latenight venues were places of drug taking and other vices, and attending them damaged the country’s culture, this group of respondents believed.

However, staff working at such venues insist they are drugfree and do not pose any cultural threat. Staff also said latenight entertainment venues made a large contribution to solving the country’s eco?nomic problems.

More than half the members of the public and police questioned agreed that such venues should only be open until 2am, whereas nearly half the respondents who worked at latenight venues wanted the operating hours extended to 3 or 4am.

About 58.4 per cent of people ques?tioned said they were not confident that police would strictly enforce the law in dealing with entertainment places, while those who worked for the venues said police corruption was the main obstacle to their business. They said police often demanded bribes by threat?ening to close venues down. Some staffers surveyed also believe the police are too tough when dealing with their workplaces.

The survey questioned 11,047 people, including police officers, members of the public, and entertainmentvenue work?ers, as well as visitors to the venues.