Authorities, military and police act together to clear out public property encroachment in Bali Hai Pier
October 5, 2016 was the deadline given to all boat operators to remove parked boats on land at Bali Hai following various complaints in the past that the boats are seriously congesting the area. Maj. Suwit Laklang, head of the NCPO Group from Military Base 21 (King’s Guard), Lt. Poradit Jitramwong and Mr. Aderek Maimongkol, senior secretary of Banglamung led a large group of military along with the police, Banglamung authorities, municipal police, tourist police, marine department and special affairs to Bali Hai Pier to follow up on the clearance announcement whereby they discovered that many boat vendors cooperated with them and removed the ‘unused boats’, which created a lot of space.
Maj. Suwit said that the authorities were satisfied that the boat vendors had cooperated and removed most of the boats as told, giving plenty of more space for a road to become a road instead of a shipyard. Both sides of the road are now cleared and all that remains are scrap and rubbish along the footpaths, which are currently be handled by Pattaya Engineering Department.
Most boats were taken away to the shipyards while a majority of the ‘usable boats’ were parked in the water. However, the boat vendors did mention that they won’t risk parking their boats at the temporary boat parking area since storms and heavy tides can damage their boats, most of which are are worth over a million baht.