Guest Posted August 18, 2001 Report Share Posted August 18, 2001 quote: Originally posted by Alfalfa: I heard that the bars actually like the early closing and are making more money. If you think about it it makes sense. With less time the girls are being more aggressive with lady drinks etc. and customers are spending more money on drinks for themselves as well. The truth is that after 1am most people would head off to the disco's or Thermae and anyone still in the bars usually did not spend that much money on drinks anyway. With Thermae and the disco's closing at the same time there is much less freelance activity afterwards which means more activity by the girls for the bars. This has apparently resulted in increased barfine activity. I would guess that the early closing time means less hours required to work which reduces the amount of wages needed to be paid out. Maybe not directly on an individual basis but indirectly in the form of reduced staffing requirements to overlap each other during a typical business day (night). Anyone out there have first hand confirmation or rebuttal to this please speak up. I am just as interested as anyone to know how true this is. What you write in your post sounds logical. I remember last July when I was in Pattaya: the beerbars in Soi 8 were slow. Still some of the betterlooking girls were picky on which customer they would go with. They could afford to reject customers because later at night they would just go to Marine to choose one of the guys there. So they were sure they always had a customer. The girls in BKK can't afford to do this any more as Nanadisco and Thermae close around the same time as NEP. So they need to score a customers in the few hours the gogo is open, otherwise it's: "no money". This explains why the girls are more active/agressive to be barfined in the gogo; no other options any more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simie Posted August 18, 2001 Report Share Posted August 18, 2001 Lucky, just a bit surprised about soi 8 girls being fussy in july, which is after all low low season. As lets face it, being polite most of them are'nt exactly "miss world" contenders! Cheers Simie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarisin Posted August 18, 2001 Report Share Posted August 18, 2001 I would like to agree with what Alfafa and other have said here and add a few comments. Last night we had a large gathering at Warbler's. I looked at my watch. The time was approaching 10PM, and I realized I had less than 3 hours of sanuk left. I hated this feeling, but headed out. The bars (Fantasia, Angelwitch, Silver Dragon, Titty Twister) in NEP seemed to have normal sized Friday night crowds. However, I noticed a distinct difference. I ran into at least 6 ladies I knew who had already been barfined, and had returned from short-times. They were in their civvies and looking for a second customer. So, it appears to me, folks are already adjusting by making their move early and grabbing the ladies for fun. Maybe the bars are making more on barfines too. For the record, I was leaving Thermae at about 12:55 am when three uniformed officers were walking down the stairs to close the joint. Sad, but I guess for now, I will just have to get used to it and adjust. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 19, 2001 Report Share Posted August 19, 2001 quote: Originally posted by Alfalfa: I heard that the bars actually like the early closing and are making more money. If you think about it it makes sense. With less time the girls are being more aggressive with lady drinks etc. and customers are spending more money on drinks for themselves as well. The truth is that after 1am most people would head off to the disco's or Thermae and anyone still in the bars usually did not spend that much money on drinks anyway. With Thermae and the disco's closing at the same time there is much less freelance activity afterwards which means more activity by the girls for the bars. This has apparently resulted in increased barfine activity. I would guess that the early closing time means less hours required to work which reduces the amount of wages needed to be paid out. Maybe not directly on an individual basis but indirectly in the form of reduced staffing requirements to overlap each other during a typical business day (night). Anyone out there have first hand confirmation or rebuttal to this please speak up. I am just as interested as anyone to know how true this is. Gotta rebut, Alfalfa. Your theory is on fairly shaky ground. Whoever told you the bar owners like the earlier closing is smoking something marketable. Proof of what I am saying is self-evident. Previolusly, there was nothing to stop bar owners from closing earlier before the 1AM deadline. Nobody closed early. I'm not aware of single bar owner that decided he would make more money by closing earlier. By the same token none of the bar owners is keen to stay open until 5AM. There is absolutely no overhead savings from closing early except electricity. Girls are paid a monthly salary. There is no savings there. As to less hours being worked because of savings in staffing overlap or whatever...Poppycock. Everybody is paid monthly, not hourly. No shifts except the single shift working from when the bar opens until it closes. Dek-serves report one hour before opening and work until the bar closes. Dancers work from when the dancing starts until the bar closes or they are bar fined. Most bars are opening an hour earlier. Business was always pretty light until 9:30 or 10:30, even if the dancing started at 7:30. Doubt customers will be flocking to the bars earlier if dancing starts at 6:30. The 1 AM to 2:30 AM slot will be hard to replace. There were generally more customers in the bar at 1:30 than 8:30. And the customers at 1:30 were usually spending their money with more abandon than the earlier crowd. As to the girls hustling harder due to their narrower window of oppurtunity. I would fall out of my chair in amazement if that happened. The girls were very happy about having to work an hour less each night until they found out that they had to come in an hour earlier. It is not in the nature of the girls to "hustle" harder. If hustling harder was in their nature you would see something more energetic than the prevailing three step "Molasses Shuffle" designed to invest the minimum effort shy of actually sitting on the stage. Girls do what they do at the speed they do it. And that is slooowwww. That is the Isaan style. Please note I took great pains to avoid using the word lazy. Incidentally, Saracin, Friday nights, a higher percentage of the girls get bar fined early.Guess the customers, knowing Friday is the busiest night, shop earlier. [ August 18, 2001: Message edited by: nepfan ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 19, 2001 Report Share Posted August 19, 2001 I am certainly no expert on Nana, but I must agree with Nepfan on this one. If I was a bar owner I would want the freedom to set my own closing times. If there enough customers to warrant staying open to 4 a.m., I would want the freedom to stay open to 4 a.m. If customers dropped off late at night, I might want to close before 1:00 a.m., but I certainly would not see any advantage in the government setting some arbitrary closing standards. Its basic economics. It is rarely good for any business when the government starts dictating when and what you have to do (unless they are protecting you business by keeping out competitors.) Let the market decide the best closing time. When that happens everybody wins - customers, bar girls and bar owners. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 19, 2001 Report Share Posted August 19, 2001 In preparation for a big trip to Thailand I have been watching the posts on the early closing times for the past several weeks with a fair amount of trepidation. After inspiring five of my friends to join me on this trip with stories about Thailand, I thought I might be forced to eat my words when they learned everything shuts up at 1:00 a.m. I did not even try to lead the posse out when we arrived on Wednesday night since our UA flight came in late, but for the last two nights I have led our little group on a tour of Patpong, Soi Cowboy and Nana. Having been here at exactly this same time last year, and being here with five newcomers, I thought it would pass on a few first observations and comments from the tourist perspective. 1. The Thai women awed most of the guys. That has not changed. 2. Patpong and Soi Cowboy, to a lesser extent, were much busier this year than last year. Patpong seemed busier by a factor of 2. Nana was about the same, except for Vodoo and G-Spot. I hung out at Vodoo and G-Spot for about seven days straight at this exact time last year, and the drop off in customers was clear and obvious. Since I have been away for a year and have not seen the gradual changes, for me it was like one of those “before and after” pictures you see in magazines for diet programs: “I lost 50% of my customers in just one year!!” 3. The biggest complaint: the early closing times. I did not mention it once before or on the way over, but it was obvious to everyone that the bars shut up at an unnaturally early time. Most frequent comment: “This is worse than California.” We have been to Greece, Mexico and Hawaii together, and everyone was perplexed by the early closing times. When you live here, perhaps it is not a big deal, but for tourists it sucks. 4. This morning on the way to an internet café to post this report, I ran into a young American and Australian couple. We started talking about other places we have visited, such as Greece and Jamaica, and even though they were obviously not sanukers, they were also surprised and complaining about the early closing times. They were on vacation in Phuket, and wanted to have fun and stay out late. They thought it very odd that in a place like Thailand, where 50 year old fat German guys pawing 19 year old Thai girls are a common sight, all of the bars close at 1 a.m. And they are right; it does seem odd. I don’t think they will be coming back. 5. Even in my own group, it is not the hard core sanukers that are put off by the early closing times, but the guys that are less interested in the sanuk scene and more interested in just having a good time going out partying. In other words, the more respectable types in my motley crew are the ones most put off by the early closing times. They are less interested in bar fining a girl and taking her back to the hotel. My own hunch: the early closing times will have a greatest affect on regular tourists. [ August 18, 2001: Message edited by: LA Dave ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 19, 2001 Report Share Posted August 19, 2001 quote: Originally posted by simie: Lucky, just a bit surprised about soi 8 girls being fussy in july, which is after all low low season. As lets face it, being polite most of them are'nt exactly "miss world" contenders! Cheers Simie. No,they weren't fussy, but from the few betterlooking girls I met in Soi 8(about 3 at most) there was always one who just waited for "mr. right" to come and if he didn't come,she took her chance at Marine disco after 2.00 am. And that's what I wanted to say: if the NEP dancers don't score a customer before 1.00 am, they don't have the falangdisco to go to any more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simie Posted August 19, 2001 Report Share Posted August 19, 2001 No problem, I understood the point you were making. I was just having a light hearted go at the attitudes of some of the girls. I'm not a big fan of soi 7/8, rather prefer the go gos myself. Cheers Simie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 19, 2001 Report Share Posted August 19, 2001 This just in from the Rock Hard web site http://www.rockhardbangkok.com/whatnew.html "Hot off the press: The Lumpini Police, after assuring bar owners that licenses were not necessary, tonight (August 17th) closed all entertainment venues in Clinton Plaza permanently. They say: "get a license, and you can open". However, they know very well, that such a license is unobtainable. We're done in Bangkok, that's it. It was a good try, and a good run, but the end has come." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Posted August 19, 2001 Report Share Posted August 19, 2001 quote: Originally posted by Swenman: "Hot off the press: The Lumpini Police, after assuring bar owners that licenses were not necessary, tonight (August 17th) closed all entertainment venues in Clinton Plaza permanently. " Anyone go to Clinton tonight that can confirm this? Things seem to be getting a little out of hand. Roger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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