Suan Lum Shopowners Defiant

[Guest BKKvisitor]

 

BANGKOK, April 29 (Reuters) - Shopowners at Bangkok's Suan Lum Night Bazaar plan to defy a Monday deadline to pack up and leave while a court decides the fate of one of the city's most popular tourist destinations.

 

"We will stay. We will not leave," a giftshop owner Wanwisakha Chansorn told Reuters outside her tiny stall in the sprawling market of 3,000 shops, a handful of restaurants and a Thai puppet theatre.

 

"Nobody plans to leave and we will go along with the majority," she said of her fellow vendors who sell everything from flip flops, fake watches and other tourist trinkets to handmade furniture and silk art.

 

Shopkeepers like Wanwisakha can generate sales of 10,000-20,000 baht per day while paying a monthly rent of 5,000-8,000 baht.

 

"Most of our customers are foreigners. Nobody wants to leave at a time when they are making money," she said of a major stop on Bangkok's tourist map with busloads of foreign visitors, mostly Asian, visiting the night market each day.

 

Suan Lum's days have long been numbered.

 

The large site next to Lumpini Park, downtown's green lung, a subway station and a major intersection -- is a prime piece of real estate owned by the Crown Property Bureau, which manages the royal family's assets.

 

In February, the CPB signed a long-term lease on a large chunk of the site to mall developer Central Pattana, which may build Bangkok's tallest building as well a hotel and shopping facilities, according to Thai newspapers.

 

The bureau is considering other developments, including an embassy row.

 

COURT FIGHT

 

Critics have questioned whether Bangkok needs another hotel/shopping complex and whether such a development fits King Bhumibol Adulyadej's sufficiency philosophy, which espouses frugality.

 

But Central Pattana's executive vice president for marketing, Nattakit Tangpoonsinthanee, said in February: "We are quite confident of developing a landmark to promote the good image of Bangkok."

 

However, the CPB must first wrest control of Suan Lum back from a property company, P Con Development, which was granted a short-term lease on the site of a former military college in 2000. It opened the night bazaar a year later.

 

P Con refused to leave after the lease expired in 2004 and according to the CPB, ignored lease extensions intended to give the shopkeepers time to leave.

 

The CPB set a final deadline for April 30 and went to court.

 

P Con has declined to comment, but its chief executive vowed last year he would not budge.

 

"My company and the traders have worked very hard to develop this land until it became popular. Now the CPB is going to give the whole concession to a rich corporation," Pairoj Tungthong told a Thai newspaper.

 

CPB official Chanoknat Simpalik said the tenants should heed the Monday deadline, but it would not try to force them out while the case is still in the courts.

 

"We have no plans to do anything after this. We will follow court instructions," Chanoknat said.

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/070429/3/312j7.html