Chonburi legislators solicited public opinion on planned changes to zoning for karaoke bars and similar entrainment venues.
Banglamung District Chief Sakchai Taengho chaired the Aug. 23 meeting attended by Sottapol Worapunyatrakul, head of the Chonburi Council, Jeerapong Wattanarat, director of the province’s Legal Office, Pattaya City Councilman and mayoral advisor Bandit Siritanyong, and Anant Jansri, a deejay from the council’s radio station.
Administrators noted that Pattaya zoning laws make six distinctions among entertainment venues, including dancing destinations, restaurants, massage parlors, karaoke bars and similar venues, live music joints and “other.”
Local officials meet with entertainment establishment owners and the public to once again discuss zoning laws.
While politicians have, for nearly a decade, discussed changes to zoning of entertainment venues in Pattaya, they currently are looking at the just the karaoke category, Sottapol said.
The politicians and bureaucrats listened to feedback from business owners and neighbors to their establishments who maintained that karaoke bars shouldn’t be located near schools, temples and homes.
Questions for the public also covered closing times and labor issues.
Sottapol said the comments will be fed back to politicians as they mull future changes to zoning laws. But he noted the process has been going since 2004 and no change is expected imminently.
