Paying a "bar" for a girl to quit aka "steady"

[NokTang]

simon43 said:

 

As to 'enforcing' payment, it won't be me enforcing it since I only put the money up to buy this bar! My wife would do the deed. Judging from the comments from our staff so far, it is the girls themselves who will insist on the payment to the bar, not my wife

 

Would do the deed? You mean this is all some fucking pipe dream you have created? You have not actually collected any of the so called fees? What is the time frame(also applies to your remark "no girl has ever left"), how long have you "owned" the bar(s)?(excuse me for not reading back if you stated already you have IN FACT been collecting fees, actually collected them, in the past)

 

cheers.

 

Nok the Kook

[-.-.-]

Nok,

 

Go easy on Simon. He WILL collect the fees if a girl ever leaves to live with or marry a falang as his wife WILL ENFORCE it.

 

I hope before they do try to do the deed, ie., enforce the buy out fee, they, or at least Simons wife, do a little research.

 

http://www.labour.go.th/ is all in Thai so Simon will have to have his wife, in whose name he put the bar, spend some time doing some research. They can even call and there are some people there who are quite fluent in English if Simon can take time away from looking after his employees.

 

What Simon claimed above is a well known practice is illegal. That is why the bar is still open and Simon has not been jailed and deported.

 

It just smacks of scam, extortion, indentured servitude, etc. Something a falang must stay far away from in BKK.

 

Not brag about in a public forum that many prominent Thai people read.

[NokTang]

himitsu said:

 

It just smacks of scam, extortion, indentured servitude, etc. Something a falang must stay far away from in BKK.

 

Not brag about in a public forum that many prominent Thai people read.

 

I am not sure he is bragging. I tend to think as mentioned, he thinks it is all fun and games to fuck with peoples lives in such a way. Combine that with his apparent lack of fear of violence and now admitted sending his wife to do the dirty work and I think it all becomes more clear.

 

Bring violence in to it, as I always say a PIMP ACT deserves and should get, and all conduct changes. When/if you do something like this and KNOW you may get some retaliation in the form of violence you think longer and harder about it. You/he may still do it, but his guard will have to be up much higher than "fun and games".

 

cheers.

 

Nok

[simon43]

ZZZZZZZZZ......

[-.-.-]

Nok,

 

I am not sure if it is fun and games or bragging but either way it is not good.

 

Above I mentioned I got the impression that he had not been in Thailand long. Now my impression is one of not having been invovled in a problem in Thailand as yet.

 

Had he had something before happen he would know that his position is the most vulnerable. The falang is always in the most vulnerable postion as we are almost always percieved to have the deepest pockets and we generally are not completely aware of what is going on.

 

The bar is in his wife's name so she will not lose a single satang if he has a problem.

 

Absolutely everyone in the bar will claim to not know of Simon's policy when the reporter from Thai Rath and the investigator from the Embassy accompanies the Thai police in dealing with the human trafficking ring uncovered in Soi 1.

 

The ability to get a payment from a bar owner for an injury caused by a thrown bottle is a little different and requires a different level of experience.

 

The very fact that the bar is still open to me indicates that his wife has not yet had to "do the deed" of "enforcing" the "well known practice" of Simon's buy out fee policy with anyone other than a naive tourist.

[simon43]

Jeeze you seem to be making up stories as you go along Himitsu!

 

I've lived in Thailand for 3 years. I speak, read and write reasonable Thai. I have many Thai friends, (including the owners of the Suk 1 Plaza building who are VERY influential people). I have never had a problem with Thai people because I have gone out of my way to integate into Thai society.

 

If you talk about the need for a customer (Thai or farang) to 'buy out' a staff member, then that requirement is exactly the same as the 1000s of other bars in Thailand. An unwritten rule.

 

Himitsu, stop day-dreaming!!!

[Guest]

This is an interesting, if very confusing, thread. A few items to make this a little clearer about the bars farang frequent:

 

1. BGs are free to leave - as in quit and get married to a Farang or work somewhere else - if they want to. The girls are not slaves or indentured servants. They can walk out of their bars anytime they want (and I can walk out of my office anytime I want), but they may not have a job when they get back (same here).

 

2. When a BG and a bar request a bar fine from a farang for a BG who is supposedly "quitting" to take a longtime holiday with a farang customer/boyfriend, because of a promise of marriage which might simply turn into a longtime holiday or some vague combination of these alternatives, this is happening because the BG wants (a) money and ( some assurance she can return to the bar if things do not work out with her new Farang "fiancee". The bar is under no obligation to re-hire her if she leaves, the BG realizes this, and the BG wants an option on returning to the bar (see point no. 4). Her behaviour and bar's cooperation in requesting a bar fine, while less than transparent, is entirely rational.

 

3. There is nothing coercive here. It is all a matter of negotiation. If a BG was truley convinced that she was in love, would never return to the bar, that all was fine and well in her relationship with her new found farang boyfriend (usually a guy she just met a few days before) and she would never ever return to the bar scene, she could simply walk away from the bar without her or her boyfriend paying the bar a single satang. Few BGs are this naive. Many farang "boyfriends" are.

 

4. BGs work for money and are attracted to particular bars because of the allure of money, but they also like to work where their friends work. This is true everywhere, but it is particularly important in Thai culture. Have you ever noticed that many of the BGs in a partiular bar are all from the same part of Thailand? For example, I think every BG I met at the old Mercury bar were not only from Kalasin, but they were also from only a few Amphores (districts) near each other in Kalasin. If a BG suspects she will return to the bar scene, this creates an additional incentive to stay on good terms with her paritucular bar, and hence the bar's ability to extract a bar fine from the customers of girls who are purportedly "quitting". This isn't coercion; it's a BG having her new farang fiancee/boyfriend fund her re-employment insurance so that she can return to the bar of her choice.

 

5. This is all really about allocation of risk and cost: the farang fiancee is, naively, paying money to eliminate the risk that that the BG won't be able to get her old job back if and when the "realtionship" fails. In doing so, the farang fiancee is, ironically and without realizaing it, providing a financial incentive for the BG to leave the "relationship" if it isn't to her liking and return to the bar. In these sorts of matters, BGs are smarther than we think.

[-.-.-]

Simon,

 

I am not day dreaming. I am stating facts and quoting you.

 

The original post on this thread was to the about ?buy out fees?, not bar fines. He used the words ?"steady" or permanent barfine to take a girl out FOREVER?

 

I don't know how you read it but I read FOREVER as meaning trying to have some sort of a long term relationship or even marriage.

 

Nok Tang was quite clear in his original post on this.

 

You then said ? I agree (and we enforce) the one-time payment if a customer takes a girl out of the bar 'permanently'.?

 

That is all this thread is about to me.

 

Everything I have said is in relation to the original post and your reply and your later attempts to justify it and finally say it has not happened yet.

 

In terms of connections, contacts and knowledge there is no point in debate.

 

You are not wrong to try to promote your bar and this is a good forum to do it. This is the best forum devoted to Thai nightlife.

 

I implore you in the strongest and most polite terms possible to stay away from any discussions or anything that could give the impression to the many prominent, wealthy and influential Thai people who read this forum that you would insist on a payment for a woman to leave your bar permanently to marry or have a long term relationship with a customer.

 

Your use of the words ?enforce?, do the ?deed? and other comments in the thread above can serve only to cause problems for the boards, yourself and the image of all westerners in Thailand.

 

Anything that could be misinterpreted as indentured servitude has more potential to blow up on you than you realize.

[khunsanuk]

Hi,

 

And on that note I think we'd better close this thread down.

 

Sanuk!

 

PS I think Gadfly's post above sums up the situation Thailand's bars pretty accurately.