HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:

Why are non-smoking laws not enforced?

Re: helping a dog

Mabprachan Reservoir water levels dropping fast

Burapa bike weekend traffic a mess

Re: volunteering for a charity

Re: Getting tortured at KFC

Why are non-smoking laws not enforced?

Editor,
Months ago when the new laws regulating smoking (no smoking) in venues and restaurants was passed, the government promised great enforcement. To make sure everyone understood the law, there was several months grace period. After the grace period many venues took the law seriously and put up signs, set up outdoor areas and seemed to respect the law even though some said it would ruin their business. Most logical thinking people understood that if every owner followed the newly enacted law, the playing field for all businesses would be fair and equal.
As time has gone on, owners noticed that no one was enforcing the law. Some owners just ignore the law even in enclosed air condition places. Even some of the very expensive venues who used to follow the old no smoking law have started to ignore the law.
So the question is: why is this law not being enforced? If the police have this duty, I would think that fining a business 20,000 baht for non compliance and another 1000 baht directly to the customer for not complying would be a great incentive. If it is a task of a different agency, that agency certainly would be able to improve its budget.
Pattaya Male

Re: helping a dog

Editor;
In regards to last week’s issue “Reprimanded for helping a dog”: Dear Dorian Farmer, in case you didn’t know, 80% of the dogs lay almost in the middle of all streets, roads, no one really knows if they are getting high off of the fumes, playing a game of chicken, or showing other dogs how macho they are. Be careful when feeding; best to drop the food close to them, bending down can get you into trouble, not only with inconsiderate people but waking up the dog. Your heart is in the right place but the dog isn’t.
Gerry Rasmus

Mabprachan Reservoir water levels dropping fast

Dear Ed,
With water levels dropping fast at Mabprachan Reservoir I could not help but being mesmerized by the stunning beautification implemented around the northern shore, especially in the section from Khun John’s restaurant to Mulligan’s. Clearly no limit in budget was set for this amazing task and I strongly recommend you send a photographer to capture the sheer beauty for all the readers to see.
Strangely in recent months several ventures have opened along the road around the reservoir, selling plants and trees. I wonder what the source for these could be?
Steve

Burapa bike weekend traffic a mess

Editor;
I have just returned from an evening at the Burapa bike week and admired how well organised the event was, a great location, plenty of parking and a wide variety of things to see and do.
On leaving what had been a great night was ruined by the usual problem of incompetent and non existent traffic police. This, after the numerous televised meetings shown between the police and local council officials for weeks prior to the event. If you have 35,000 people arriving in your town surely it would be a good idea to have adequate entrances and exits to avoid the gridlock which ensued.
Anyone exiting the event had to pull out and turn right across the thousands of oncoming bikes and cars who had to pass the exit to enter. With no traffic police to be seen the roads were gridlocked backing up to Sukhumvit Road some miles back.
What had been a well organised event was ruined, just the same as New Year at Bali High pier. When will the police and council get it right? As it appears, despite the growing budgets and manpower thrown at Pattaya’s problems nothing is ever solved.
A disappointed Pattaya expat

Re: volunteering for a charity

Editor;
To Webb Phillips re: Volunteering for a charity or service organization: I would love to be able to donate my time to worthwhile charitable organisations in Thailand. Unfortunately I do not have a work permit that enables me to do that. I am unwilling to run the risks involved in working without a permit. It’s Thailand’s loss.
Barry,
Jomtien

Re: Getting tortured at KFC

Editor;
I happen to love KFC chicken breasts with the original recipe breading. The problem is that I can never seem to find it in a KFC in Thailand. I use to have the experience when I both lived in or visited Pattaya, and now, since a store opened up here in Yasothon, I am experiencing the same malaise.
A Big C opened here approximately 3 or 4 months ago and I was ecstatic to see that they had KFC included in it. I have lived in Yasothon for ten years and needless to say, there is not a lot of farang food here.
Since it opened, I have been there at least a dozen times, maybe more. Of those times I have found two remaining original chicken breasts once, one three times and the remaining times none. They always tell me that they can make one or two if I want to wait twenty minutes or so, but two of those times that I did, they came back five minutes later and said that they couldn’t make them.
Now I know this all seems very petty, but what occurred after that was the real experience.
I attempted to enter the internet and lodge a complaint with their office here in Thailand, but what I experienced instead likened to the experiences of Alice in Wonderland. Me being Alice.
I went to KFC, Thailand and clicked the first listing for KFC and got a picture with two boxes. English and Thai. I clicked the English four times but was never able to get anything, so out of desperation I clicked the Thai. All I got was an advertisement about the various meals they have there. I then went down a little and clicked a listing for customer comments. When I entered my birth date, which was in 1941, I got a page that said I was too young to make comments. I appreciated the compliment, but then, for some reason, began to suspect that something was awry. I tried to do the entire procedure from the beginning again, but they refused to give me the box asking for my age again and instead kept giving me the page telling me I was too young.
I finally got out of that page and went all the way back to the beginning procedures and then I got an entirely different list of contacts. Mostly in Thai.
I clicked a few of them and got the menu advertisement again. Needless to say, I was getting a little frustrated.
I finally found one that said it was their corporate contact in America and decided to contact them as I had come to the conclusion that I wouldn’t get to them in Thailand. They had a listing entitled “customer contacts” again and I thought I was finally going to reach someone. What I got was a questionnaire that wanted to know not only my name and address, but the address and phone number of the store, the date of whatever I wanted to report, what I had ordered, how much it cost and about ten other bits of information; none of which anyone would have handy. Additionally, there was a box for my age, which scared me to death. This entire procedure from the time I hit search took me about a half an hour, but all of my efforts to contact these people were successfully thwarted by the illusive KFC.
For a while I started to feel that maybe I had entered the Twilight Zone, but Rod Serling was no where to be found so I finally decided to try sending in an email to a newspaper in hopes that KFC would reply.
My best guess is that Colonel Sanders is turning over in his grave, but I am still hopeful that I may get lucky and make a contact.
One thing though. Should KFC send a letter to the Pattaya Mail advising me to contact their website, I have to ask. Do I need to fill out one of those pages with the twenty questions for each incident of dissatisfaction? The reason that I am asking is because I am going to be 68 years old soon and I am running a little short on time.
In summation, I would like to point out that Colonel Harland Sanders made a small fortune selling original recipe fried chicken for a long time. Why is it that now, one can not find a piece in Thailand? If you are going to suggest that it is because Thais don’t like it, I would have to suggest to you that that may be the case in Yasothon, but it doesn’t explain the same problem in Pattaya, which is loaded with Westerners.
And people are wondering why most of the corporations in America are now seeking government loans. It would be interesting to see what bonuses the top executives of KFC took last year and whether or not any of them were for having a banner year in selling original recipe chicken breasts in Thailand.
In summation, I would like Erik (Bahrt) to know that I am now becoming a believer of his allegations about torturing chickens. I know he has no sympathy for those of us that do eat chickens, but it would appear that he has an unwanted supporter now solidly behind him. If one considers the way they torture the people who eat their chickens but have a complaint about it by putting them on the cyber space rack, then I would have no doubt that they are capable of abusing the chickens themselves.
I say go get them Erik. It is fairly obvious that they not only like to torture chickens, but also the people that eat them. As for the stockholders, I can only imagine what the board of directors are doing to them.
John Arnone
Yasothon

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