Udon’s Beer Bars’ Beers Bar Scam

A friend and I recently travelled up to Udon Thani, where we stayed overnight.

Playing pool in a beer bar in a very quiet complex, we got talking to the owner who was selling up, fed up with low tourist numbers, financial concerns, hassles and shakedowns, including the ubiquitous “real or not” copyright agent’s  visit and haggled massive fine.

The last straw was a 50,000 baht fine for advertising beer on their beer coolies.

He showed me what they now had to do with them (pictured), and said it was part of a new clampdown, although in other bars we were in they hadn’t had to cover up these containers.

Whether the other bars paid bigger backhanders or just argued the toss better, who knows.

I haven’t yet seen anything like this in Pattaya, where the revenue to be had from beer bars if this scam was pulled regularly would be enormous, if ultimately suicidal.

I recall a while back one Walking Street club was hit with a similar scam/pretext for a raid, although I suspect this had more to do with local bung economics than with juristic cogitations and a strict statutory interpretation of laws as applied to a beer mat.

If this barmy law was being strictly enforced, logic would dictate that labels on beer bottles should also be taken off or covered up.

And taken to its logical conclusion the breweries would have to be raided every day, as they churn out the offending bottles, labels and all, as well as retail stores everywhere who offer them for sale.

On second thoughts, maybe I shouldn't point that out......