Phuket Officials With Guns! Seize 50 Beach Umbrellas From Tourists On Surin Beach Phuket

[waerth]

What a way to keep the tourists in Phuket! Seizing their umbrellas while wearing militairy gear and guns!! And not speaking English off course

 

http://phuketwan.com/tourism/phuket-officials-seize-beach-umbrellas-tourists-surin-22206/

 

Phuket Officials Seize 50 Beach Umbrellas from Tourists at Surin

 

By Prasit Tarnsirisin

 

PHUKET: Officials in uniform removed more than 50 tourists' bring-you-own or rented beach umbrellas from the sands at Surin this afternoon.

 

The dramatic action by a force of local district workers is expected to trigger a strong reaction.

 

Surin is generally regarded as Phuket's upmarket five-star beach and the people who use it are the ''quality'' tourists that the Tourism Authority of Thailand says the country wants to keep.

 

Scenes of officials removing the umbrellas from tourists, leaving them in the blazing sun, are likely to trigger anger and probably an exodus by the tourists involved.

 

The action at Surin followed the seizure earlier today of illicit sunbeds and more than 70 thick padded mats from a beach near the five-star Banyan Tree Resort, further north along Phuket's popular holiday coast.

 

The Thalang district officials are carrying out an order from the Governor of Phuket, Nisit Jansomwong, to restrict the use of umbrellas and mats to 10 percent of each of Phuket's prime tourist beaches.

 

This reporter had to explain what was happening in English to many of the tourists, including an Australian couple on the sand in front of the Catch Beach Club. The 30 officials in today's raid could not speak English.

 

Tourists questioned why officials were dressed in camouflage, looking like the military, and why many of them had guns on their hips.

 

Many of the tourists were from Europe. One, Hanspeter Bloch, 51, on the staff at Swissair, said he had no idea about the ''10 percent zones.''

 

This is despite notices having been posted along the beachfront telling tourists what they can and cannot do on the beach these days.

 

Some of the tourists admitted using umbrellas from outlaw renters. However, when officials asked whether anyone claimed the confiscated beach umbrellas, there were no takers.

 

One conversation between a tourist and an official went like this:

 

Tourist: ''Is my chair legal or not?''

 

Official: ''It's illegal now.''

 

There were about 20 umbrellas already in the ''10 percent zones'' and the 51 confiscated umbrellas were free-range on the beach, close to the water.

 

Some tourists chose to stay in the sun even after their umbrellas had been confiscated.

 

Another Phuketwan reporter visited Surin beach a couple of weeks ago when tourists were still permitted to bring their own umbrellas and beach chairs. The scene looked idyllic and picture-perfect.

 

While tourists have preferred to plant their own small umbrellas on the hard, cool sand near the sea's edge, the governor's 10 percent zones are at the back of the beach, on the hotter sand.

 

On the day Phuketwan visited Surin three weeks ago, there were many more byo tourists' umbrellas than could have fitted into the 10 percent zones.

 

Most of the world's top beaches take a casual approach to sunlovers bringing their own umbrellas, chairs and other equipment and do not seek to regiment them into zones.

 

Last year, the military took control in Thailand and rapidly cleared all commerce from Phuket's beaches and foreshores, knocking down most beach clubs and restaurants.

 

Beaches in Thailand are public but for more than 20 years, Phuket's beaches had been privatised by people renting umbrellas and sunbeds, selling food and drink and souvenirs, and encroaching on the foreshores with illegal restaurants and beach clubs.

 

Phuket's governor has tried to keep the beaches as clear as possible but he sought a ''10 percent zone'' compromise to give work to some of the poorer beach vendors.

 

The Mayor of Patong and others along the coast say that after making relatively easy money from tourists for many years, none of the beach workers are poor.

[jitagawn]

:rotl:

[Coss]

Interesting that the initial moves were to 'clean up the beaches' after decades of Thais renting everything from Umbrellas to Baby Elephants and cluttering up the place.

 

Now the enforcement morons are slapping the Tourists around.

 

I've never wanted to go to that part of Thailand in the first place, because of the Thai's attitudes as they've been widely reported, less likely to go there now.

 

Much much better beaches in the Pacific Islands, Australia and NZ.

[cavanami]

Leave it to the Thais...they can fark up corn flakes!

[YimSiam]

Military regimes are good at a few key things - the rest, not so much. Public relations and customer service, for instance.