On the crowded street in Bangkok City, the bling-bling lights fill the street at every corner of the business district around the town. Even the boiling wind blows through day and night, tourists and locals are still spending their wonderful moments in this metropolitan by the help of street foods and traditional Thai product shops that create magic.
Apart from Street food vendors, on the public spaces and walkway areas were being used as a location of thousand shops selling illegal products at a low price which magnetize visitors to stop by and purchase.
Once I went shopping at the local market in Bangkapi district and I found a temporary shop with only two middle-age sellers standing at the back of a large table full of sportswear. A flock of people was in front of them trying to find a piece of clothes they satisfy.
“All are real, it’s just not the 'QC Pass’, I got it directly from the factory.” the majority of shop owners told me the same thing as a permanent format to answer my question. Just some admitted that those all are fake.
Well, no matter what they say, I cannot find out anyway.
Why?
Because sometimes they literally kicked out the unqualified pieces in a cheaper price for people who know the insight, thus, they will come to the factory at the informed time (from the workers inside the warehouse) to buy it beforehand. And they will sell it at the local markets, or the market for office workers who gain not many salaries each month. This information was from my research and my big brother who owns an online shop on Instagram, selling second-hand commodities which he got it from Talad Rong Kluea.
Those sportswear clothes come with leading brands’ tag mostly consist of three popular ones which are Nike, Adidas and Under Armour. The fabrics are normal polyester, so it is quite hard to detect the differences of it, but we all know it from the cutting and design.
The fake products can be spotted at Nana and Patpong area. Along the public pathway from Nana BTS station to Asoke station, there are plenty of shops selling the same thing; a dangerous medicine helps specifically for sex, Sex toy, E-cigarettes, Amulets, and Fake Brand name products. I went to the place and took a picture and show it to the police, but nothing happened. I came back a week after and still find the sellers sitting at the same place, smoking and turning loud music up in the public area.
I don't understand why? But then 2 months later I knew what is going on.
I asked for the FOI Requests from three different districts, however, the only one district that calls me back is Pathumwan District. On the day I got to meet him in person, he explained to me a lot of facts I never knew before.
Firstly, If you want police to get the sellers of a fake brand or brand-name products to jail, you need to wait at least two months for the police to contact the brand owner. Then the owner or his/her representatives must be at the location where you make a complaint in order to point out if the products are fake or not. That is the working process.
Okay, bye.
For the e-cigarette, it is prohibited to sell according to the law.
“Consumer Protection Board Order No. 9/2015 on Prohibition of Sales and Service of Hookahs, Electronic Hookahs, and Electronic Cigarettes, Smoking Materials for Hookahs, and Liquids for Filling Electronic Hookahs and Electronic CigarettesArticle 2. The sale of hookahs, electronic hookahs, and electronic cigarettes, smoking materials for use in hookahs, and liquids for filling hookahs, electronic hookahs, and electronic cigarettes are prohibited. This prohibition shall extend to and include the rental, hire-purchase, or other procurement of such devices and materials in return for monetary or other compensation, and to any acts of inducement or persuasion to engage in such activities”.
This law does not seem to work in Nana, I reported this case to The City Law Enforcement Department (Reference Number 6201-0104) later on, 1555 called me on February 11th but I missed the call, right after, I did check up on the website that I reported the issue and found the reply of a specific punishment for these wrongdoings.
Yet when I walk through the area again, I saw that all the temporary shops still there. Okay, think in a good way, maybe the police had already been here but these people came back to sell the cigarettes again?
Secondly, The friendly officer handed me the documents full of information that I asked. Excepted just for the statistics of street vendors in the area. All the statistics I got is how many motorcycles and cars were caught due to wrongdoings. He explained that in the past, officers would only warn them. However, in the present, officials decided to make a new rule that officers can charge them for a fine even it is the first time.
“Street vendors, shop owner and residents who live along the main road acknowledged that to park their cars on the public road is prohibited. Those who are being caught, are people from outside of the area.” Pathumwan district’s officer said.
“You know Bantadthong is the popular food district, people come to taste the nation’s favorite dishes. But Thai is Thai. Even if they see the prohibited-parking sign, they still be like ‘Oh it’s okay, I will be here just a while.’ And they are fined.”
According to Section 57 Subsection 1 and Subsection 5 of the Land Traffic Act, (1979):“Unless otherwise granted by the Act or regulations, no driver shall park his vehicle:On a footpath;In an area where there is a “No Parking” traffic sign.”
According to the statistics, some months the number of cars and motorcycles being fined are reduced. Unfortunately, the fact is because officers and polices have too much section of work to do (he told me so), that is why they do not have time to focus on the illegal parking as usual.
That’s too bad.
I also have no idea that the illegal parking cases being reported by me to get solved in the end or not. The only thing I know is the promise to payback 500 bahts if the cases are successfully done, I have a chance to get it, the money? No, I got the answer ‘accepted.’ I reported more than three cases but no matter how often I refreshed the website, nothing updated.
Meanwhile, the police officer at Thammasat University Rangsit Campus always did a good job on reaction to illegal parking. About 7 pm every night, The police team will get on the car and drive around the university to foresee the wrongdoings. Police will lock up the wheels immediately and give the informational document for car owners to clear the problem as soon as possible.
Carts, tables, and plastic chairs were put on the pathway. Fire smoke from the pan spread on the air, hear the chopping sound of vegetables, eaters loudly swallow a noodle flour while kilograms of fried meatballs are bouncing in the huge yellow pot.
According to Article 20 of the Act on Maintenance of the Cleanliness and Orderliness of Thailand (1992);
“No one shall:
cook food, sell or distribute goods on the road or in a public establishment;
use a sedan car or wheeled vehicle as a cooking place for selling or distributing to persons on the road or in a public establishment;
sell or distribute goods contained in a car, motorbike or wheeled vehicle on the road or in a public establishment.”
Street food vendors are cheap, tasty, quick, worth at every baht we pay. Its power makes the economy flows and helps to make some communities to not be too quiet, which may reduce the occurrence of crime. However, not every street carts care about the environment where they borrowed without official permission. A little thing like throw away used oil on the road, or into the public sewer made the whole area disgusting and smelly. The most important public property they exploited is the walkway. Sellers park their food carts or tables on the place where people need it to walk, instead, because of this reason, pathway users have to walk on the road which is risky for an accident.
“Why the government does not congregate them to sell street food in a certain area?”
This question has been asked for several times on social media platforms, online websites, and also in public. However, there are no effective answers for us yet.
What people should concern about street food even if convenient and tasty. But they are poor in hygienic. Including outdoor restaurant, some store has only one basin with overflowing water which will never get a chance to change throughout the day, meaning that after each customer finishes their dishes, the restaurant clients will dip it in the water and reuse again.
I did not say that every restaurant did this, but I have seen some.
Why doing the right thing does not seem to be something right?
The first week I walked around Rama9 District, I found a particular group of motorcycle taxi parked their favorable vehicle on the walkway, in front of a condominium. The owners sat on black seats, swiped their phones, and waited for some customers at 8 pm. Rush hours was ended, but moto-taxi will be there until late. Yes, the walkway was prohibited for parking anything except your feet. ‘Don’t put yourself in danger,’ said Mr. Bruce, well, this picture in front of me was so obvious that I could not hesitate to capture that photo. Surprisingly, I pretended like I was doing the video call with my friend at the same time when he (the motorcycle owner) turned to see me. Fortunately, he did not seem to care.
ACT ON THE MAINTENANCE OF THE CLEANLINESS AND ORDERLINESS OF THE COUNTRY, B.E. 2535 (1992)“Section 17. No one shall:(1) take any action to impair the pavement;(2) park or drive or ride a car, motorbike or wheeled vehicle on the pavement except for parking or driving to enter the building or there is an announcement of the traffic officer to allow such parking or driving.”
This case taught me to feel frightened by our society. I swear next time I will step away from strangers who did the activities against the law and take a photo from a far away point. On the other hand, I would like to thank my easy-going personality. After I had taken his photo, I continued pretending to talk on the phone for a bit longer then I hang up and walk to him.
“Are you tired?” I asked.
“No. No. not as tired as this afternoon.”He smiled.“I’ll drive home in one hour.”
“How long have you been here?”
“For a year maybe.”
“Income per day?”
“Well, it’s hard to tell, someday I got thousands, someday I got hundreds.”
“Interesting!” I said. The conversation nearly ended, but the motorcycle driver told me one last thing.
“It’s not easy you know. This orange vest costs me more than 30,000 baht.”
I wanted to ask that he pay for whom, but I left it in my mind.
At Asoke Road located several Izakaya bars and restaurants due to the fact that this piece of Sukhumvit along the way to Prom Phong, Thonglor, and Ekkamai are places where Japanese people live their life peacefully with their family. Their rich culture consists of Sushi and Sashimi in the afternoon. And rotate the food shop in another way around, the mild smell of Ramen at the middle of the night changes restaurants to bars. The famous ones are Kenshin Izakaya bar and Shakariki 432”.
Not only Japanese office workers spend half the night here. Asoke is the crucial location of various offices in Thailand. Thus, we can see that after 6 pm, customers who visit these restaurants started to celebrate their free time with alcohol. Japanese beers are famous for their soft texture, mellow taste, and nice-smelling. Almost every Japanese bar will obviously make a promotion such as a buy 1 get 1 free, or 50% discount for a happy hour, stick that information paper or place a banner at the front door.
Date: 25th January 2019
Location: Sukhumvit 23 Yaek 4
Kenshin Izakaya located at the same intersection with Healthland Asoke. At the front, a big vinyl with Asahi photo was placed to promote the promotion.
We all have to admit that this law was not being strongly enforced enough as many restaurants both in Bangkok and other provinces also did the same wrongdoings. We might have to promote this alcoholic law more, on the same level as a promotion of “If you are drunk, don’t drive” within the Songkran Festival every year.
The restaurant ‘KenshinIzakaya’ serves Japanese food. Operates from afternoon until late night.
Not only one pink beer label, another one placed on the opposite side
A separate menu just for Alcohol. The bottle, brand, price, and description are written clearly with the cute sentence encouraging consumers to try. Most of the customers are Japanese which is the same target Audience with another Japanese Restaurant located at the opposite side of the road.
I have been here for a year ago and I did remember that Shakariki 432’’ Asoke Branch is selling Alcohol and also offer the beer buffet promotion, they put it all on the menu.
BUY 1 GET 1 FREE for Japanese cocktail and draft beer promotions were attached to the front door. and the menu contains promotions of Beer Buffet.
They also sell different types of Alcohol which are beer, wine, shots, Japanese Sake and more. With some sentence encourage male consumer such as “ไซส์5ลิตร สำหรับลูกผู้ชายตัวจริง”
You can almost see 70% of illegal doings in Asoke Road.
The numerous flower pot placed on the public pathway and on the street, a small and big banner was being stuck on the public electronic pole, huge black trash bags were lying near the main road, water from thrown away food dropped on the concrete street, all making the environment look messy and dirty.
the 1555 hotline works so well at Asoke! no longer than two days I walk back there again and I found that the place was clean!
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