My brother send me this note, from Thaivisa. It will be interesting to see what happens
thaivisa.com 21/jan-12
For the last week or two City Hall has been finding excuses to close all bars in Jomtien. So far I am told, all bars in Soi Whitehouse, Soi 7, Soi 5, some in the new bar complex off Soi Rompho (the market), Country Club, Blue Dolphin, DK, and others are now closed. They have said that they are confident of finding an excuse to close all the remaining ones. Firstly all paper work ( licences ) were checked along with staff IDs, if all in order then a reason was manufactured, i.e. being open after legal hours 1 am. Technically all places selling alcohol must close at midnight but for as long as anyone can remember, it has been ignored in the Pattaya. area. I have heard two theories for this. One is that the powers that be think that closing all bars will make the area more attractve to 'Quality' tourists, the 'riff raff' can go to Walking Street to drink. The second beng that due to the declining number of tourists, the bars in Pattaya are losing money, so if they get rid of competition in Jomtien then numbers of punters would improve there. I believe that all the closed bars have been given orders to close for thirty days during which time, they must try to persuade officials to allow them to re-open at the end of it. We all know what that means! I wonder why the local media haven't mentioned this, a major change in the way of life in Jomtien.