Latest Sunee Bar Raid

[Gaybutton]

The following appears in PATTAYA ONE:

 

for photos, see: http://www.pattayaone.net/news/2009/october/news_17_10_52_2.shtml

 

Note: The article refers to the bar as Y2K. If this was about 2 years ago, that would be correct. The bar changed names and became Look Bar. It recently changed names again and now is the Playboy Bar.

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Underage Employees and Drug Users Found in Sunee Plaza Boy Bar Police Raid

 

Pattaya, October 17 [PATTAYA ONE NEWS] :

 

In the early hours of Saturday Morning, Police Lieutenant Colonel Sutum conducted a raid on the Y2K Go-Go Bar located in Soi Sunee Plaza following allegations the venue was employing underage boys. The raid took place and a total of 9 employees were found to be under the age of 18 and 12 employees failed drug tests.

 

The manager of the venue, Khun Sutin aged 40, was also arrested and everyone was taken back to Pattaya Police Station for processing. A report of the raid has been sent to the Banglamung District Licensing Unit for their consideration.

[Guest]

Are the raids still going on? They seem to target this place quite a bit.

 

It is also interesting that the "news" organizations can't get the name right. It must be a very well researched article.

[Guest]

Are the raids still going on? They seem to target this place quite a bit.

 

Seems easy enough to avoid the bars that keep being mentioned in these posts & improve the chances of a disturbance free evening.

[Guest fountainhall]

Was in a Sunee Bar last week name Euro Boys (I think that was the one) where the boys were a bundle of fun but many looked very borderline age-wise. Does it have an underage reputation?

[Gaybutton]

the boys were a bundle of fun but many looked very borderline age-wise. Does it have an underage reputation?

Whether any bar does or not, the issue for you, as a farang, is whether you take an under-age boy off. Don't. Check his ID card to make sure he is at least 18 years old, and make sure the ID card you're checking is actually his own and not one he borrowed.

[Guest fountainhall]

Check his ID card to make sure he is at least 18 years old

 

This I perfectly understand and would have done so had I wished to take out any of the boys. I just wondered if this bar has a reputation for employing boys who are underage.

[Gaybutton]

I just wondered if this bar has a reputation for employing boys who are underage.

Due to Thai libel laws, we really cannot start naming individual bars that may have such a reputation. It's fair game if we are discussing a report that has appeared in the media, but we cannot have conversations appearing here that say this bar or that bar employs under-age boys, even if we know it to be true. That's Thai law.

[Guest fountainhall]

Thanks - understood.

[Guest gwm4sian]

The following appears in PATTAYA ONE:

 

 

Note: The article refers to the bar as Y2K. If this was about 2 years ago, that would be correct. The bar changed names and became Look Bar. It recently changed names again and now is the Playboy Bar.

_____

 

 

I think you will find there is no law or rule that says that the name of bar as registered with the licensing authorities must be the same as the name displayed outside the bar.

 

Changing the name displayed outside the bar is easy - there are lots of sign makers in Pattaya - but changing the registration of a bar involves a lot of work and money, and doesn't achieve anything like losing the black marks the authorities have recorded against a premises.

[Gaybutton]

I think you will find there is no law or rule that says that the name of bar as registered with the licensing authorities must be the same as the name displayed outside the bar.

I was not aware of that, but even so I don't understand why the news report would have used a name other than the displayed name, to avoid confusion.

[Guest Oogleman]

The reason this place is being targetted i have heard is that the owner refused to pay the "tea money" on last 2 raids. No doubt the raids will continue until he does.

 

This is itself speaks volumes about the whole fiasco of the system.

 

If this post upsets anyone please delete.

[Guest alaan]

Fountainhall....just come upon this thread....with regards to the Bar you mention......I know of one boy who works there....he is quite young looking..borderline to look at as might you suggest....but he is in fact 19...he speaks very good english..and when you talk with him he is very mature in his attitude. He told me he was recruited by that bar because the management like to have Twink style boys on their staff.He also told me all the boys he knows there(friends)are all around his age and have worked in other agogos previously.

 

For me the problem bars and agogos are those with OBVIOUSLY under age staff dancing and there are currently 3 agogo bars i wont visit again.......one of them being the one apparently not coming up with the 'tea money'...the doormen there dont even ask me now when i pass them.

 

But.......I would guess that virtually EVERY agogo in Pattaya has at some time or other employed staff not yet 18.I know for a fact that one prominent Boyztown agogo had a guy of 16 dancing there available for offing when i used to visit 3 years ago. He told me only recently (now he is 19) that both owners and management knew his age at the time, fortunately i never offed him...he was just a friend of a couple of the guys I knew from that agogo in PL3.

 

I also currently know of one guy who has just started work for a PL1 agogo after coming to Pattaya for the first time from his home beside KhonKaen and he is 17. The management are fully aware of his age...granted he actually looks over 21.....if a customer enquires about his i.d. it is lost...and if no enquiry about i.d. is asked because he looks well over 18.....none is offered.

 

So there are no guarantees........for younger looking guys it is a bit of a lottery......obviously the bars/agogos aren't that bothered about protecting the customer and i suppose it is not up to them...it is up to yourself....all very well for the usual warnings from the likes of Gaybutton everytime a thread like this is running about checking the i.d.s..we all know that already for goodness sake...you would have to be blind,deaf and dumb not to.....but being sure that the i.d. is 100% genuine is easier said than done.....For example the very strict security at Silom soi 2....DJ station etc.... let an 18 year old going on 19 through on a borrowed i.d. of a 21 year old guy who, in my opinion looks nothing like him.....that was about 3 weeks ago.

 

Mind you.....if the Thais themselves cannot make up their mind about the age of someone what chance have we? example- my bf has a friend from the same village recently started working in Soi Twilight....he told me his friend was 19...and as far as he was concerned that was his age...but on talking with his friend when i met him for the first time on my last visit...the friend confirmed to me that he is in fact 18....when i told my bf...the answer was yes...18-19 same same.

[Gaybutton]

we all know that already for goodness sake...you would have to be blind,deaf and dumb not to.....but being sure that the i.d. is 100% genuine is easier said than done

I agree that checking the validity of the ID can be difficult if a boy is really clever, but I doubt that the police or Thai courts are trying to go after people who have been duped. The only time I've ever heard of that sort of thing is the occasional scam involving a rogue police officer or a phony police officer.

 

Speaking of phony police officers, watch out for that too. There seems to be more and more of that going around, although most news reports I read about them are reports of them preying on other Thais rather than farang.

 

I disagree about having to be "blind,deaf and dumb." I make no such assumption. This board also gets its share of newbies who have no idea about any of these goings-on. While most people who frequent this board are well aware, it doesn't hurt to remind everyone.

 

However, it is also true that despite the scofflaw bars hiring under-age boys, I know of only one incident in recent history in which a farang was arrested as a result of taking an under-age boy off from a bar and, as I recall it, there seemed to be more to the story than was published.

 

No matter how many times we post these warnings and news reports, there are still people out there who do their thinking with their crotch instead of their head.

[Guest fountainhall]

with regards to the Bar you mention......I know of one boy who works there....he is quite young looking..borderline to look at as might you suggest....but he is in fact 19...He told me he was recruited by that bar because the management like to have Twink style boys on their staff.He also told me all the boys he knows there(friends)are all around his age and have worked in other agogos previously.

 

Thanks alaan. I'll give it another go on my next trip and check an ID card or two. Although I did not take anyone out last time, I bought a few drinks for some boys and the mama-san. They were great fun to be with.

[Guest naughtybutnice]

 

Mind you.....if the Thais themselves cannot make up their mind about the age of someone what chance have we? example- my bf has a friend from the same village recently started working in Soi Twilight....he told me his friend was 19...and as far as he was concerned that was his age...but on talking with his friend when i met him for the first time on my last visit...the friend confirmed to me that he is in fact 18....when i told my bf...the answer was yes...18-19 same same.

 

One of the main areas of confusion about age is that Thais consider a child to be 'one' as soon as the child is born.

 

My housekeeper in Bangkok has two boys 15 & 13 years of age but according to her and the boys they are 16 & 14, despite my best efforts over the last 6 years since she has been my housekeeper and my trying to explain to the boys they all insist the ages are 16 & 14.

 

A few weeks ago we had a party here for 15 of their schoolmates and all of them when asked gave their age in the Thai way i.e. adding one year to their actual age.

[Gaybutton]

gave their age in the Thai way i.e. adding one year to their actual age.

That is a typical Thai concept of age, but legally you must go by the date on their ID cards.

[macaroni21]

That is a typical Thai concept of age, but legally you must go by the date on their ID cards.

 

I understand the Thai system. I've heard that other Asian cultures also apply a similar system, though I'm no authority on that. It makes sense. It's just as logical as the Western system to say "He's in his fifteenth year" meaning he's somewhere between his 14th and 15th birthday per the Western system.

 

What I've been meaning to ask for a long time but never had the opportunity, is this: If that is the Thai system, then wouldn't Thai law be interpreted in the same way? That is, if the law says a boy needs to be 20 to enter a bar, would that mean that the boy needs to be in his twentieth year (i.e. past his 19th birthday) to enter a bar?

[Gaybutton]

If that is the Thai system, then wouldn't Thai law be interpreted in the same way?

That would make sense, but perhaps you forget that in Thailand making sense is not necessarily a factor. Thai law is not interpreted that way. No matter how you look at it, the boy must be at least 18 years older than the birth date shown on his ID card.

[Guest gwm4sian]

I was not aware of that, but even so I don't understand why the news report would have used a name other than the displayed name, to avoid confusion.

 

Because the news report was written by the police or at least quoted extensively from their press release.

[Guest naughtybutnice]

 

What I've been meaning to ask for a long time but never had the opportunity, is this: If that is the Thai system, then wouldn't Thai law be interpreted in the same way? That is, if the law says a boy needs to be 20 to enter a bar, would that mean that the boy needs to be in his twentieth year (i.e. past his 19th birthday) to enter a bar?

 

No, the Thai system of defining age I mentioned is purely something Thai's tend to use amongst themselves and has no standing in Thai law when determining someone's age.

 

We employ over 200 Thais in our Bangkok office and all documentation where age is required to be stated is based on the actual age which is the same as the Thai ID card record.

 

There is an important distinction between a person being 'in' their 20th year and a person being '20 years of age'.

[Gaybutton]

The latest article about this appears in today's PATTAYA MAIL:

 

http://www.pattayamail.com/current/news.shtml#hd14