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Even as military clears Phuket, Hua Hin, beach vendors tighten hold on 50% of Pattaya beaches
Banglamung District Chief Sakchai Taengho
(left) and Deputy Mayor Ronakit Ekasingh (right) announce a detailed
list of prohibitions and allowances to the over 200 vendors in
attendance.
Urasin Khantaraphan
Even as Thailand’s military regime clears Phuket and Hua Him
beaches of chairs, umbrellas and food vendors, local officials are
cementing the hold of vendors over half of Pattaya’s public shoreline
through new regulations.
Banglamung District Chief Sakchai Taengho and Pattaya Deputy Mayor
Ronakit Ekasingh announced the detailed list of prohibitions and
allowances to vendors Aug. 22, claiming they were yielding to “enormous”
amounts of public complaints by now limiting chair vendors to just 50
percent of the beach. Previous regulations allowed vendors to occupy up
to 65 percent of the sand.
Such a “concession” stands in stark contrast to Phuket and Hua Hin where
the National Council for Peace and Order has used soldiers to remove
every last beach chair, umbrella and food stand from the beach to
restore the shoreline’s natural beauty. With the junta moving
methodically throughout the country’s beach resorts, some say - many
hopefully - that it could be only a matter of time before real change
comes to Pattaya’s beaches.
Until then, the vendors will have “no problem” operating on the beach,
provided they follow the rules, Sakchai said.
Vendors can operate from 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and deploy 40 lounge
chairs and 35 umbrellas in their 7-meter-wide plot (49-sq meters total).
Chairs must be neatly organized in off hours and no cooking will be
allowed. Also, no pets or vehicle parking is allowed.
Food can be promoted and sold on the beach, but cooking on the beach is
strictly forbidden. A price list must be available to inform people food
prices before they order. Merchants will cook the food on the opposite
side of the road, which will be brought and served to people on the
beach. Soft drinks and cigarettes can be sold, but not advertised.
Rubber tubes are restricted to 10 in number and prices for these, along
with seafood for sale, must be posted. Finally, vendors are banned from
sleeping on their plots at night.
Sakchai admitted that regulation of beach-chair operators has been a
constant struggle, with many exceeding past the boundaries of their
allocated spaces. The problem has been especially bad in Jomtien where
vendors have gotten in conflicts over space, resulting in requests for
even more public land to be given to private sellers.
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