Govt clampdown on alcohol sales

[STEVE G]

I think the country could take a massive step forward if they forgot about all these 'times you can buy alcohol' rubbish, and just completely banned Lao Kao. Anyone caught drinking said poison being instantly isolated - away from civilization...

Are you living in dream world? Deprive 80% of the population from their juice? The Reds, Yellows, Greens, Blues, Blacks and some farangs, and they would hang draw and quarter you Next thing you will recommend is banned is

The only people that drink that stuff are people with an, let's say, undesirable character. How many women have you seen knocking it back? If they could focus on the Lao Kao problem instead of punishing the sensible drinker, well...

... that would make a little too much sense for comfort, I'm sure.

Thai women do drink Lao Khao but they improve the taste a bit first by putting it into a jar with various infusions for a couple of weeks, it tastes better than Jagermiester if you do it right, ( which is not saying a lot, I know! )

[HHTel]

I notice that after looking at a few of the local newspapers around Thailand, the police are openly (and have even been quoted) ignoring this new law. It looks like it will vanish into the 'bad idea box' along with other silly laws.

[VincentD]

The 'law' (actually I think it's a directive) has been in place for a few years now. This also affects petrol stations (notice the 7-11s at the gas stations do not have any alcohol period). Also note that the supermarkets and minimart chains do not sell during the off hours as the cash registers are programmed not to accept a sale of such item. The mom and pop shops cash in on this. I think wholesale purchases are still unaffected so if you buy more than two cases at a time you still can.

[HHTel]

I think wholesale purchases are still unaffected so if you buy more than two cases at a time you still can.

Not according to the new 'law'/directive:

Also, the old law allows for wholesale purchase of alcohol in excess of 10 liters to be made at any time of the day while any purchase under 10 liters can only be made at the specified times.

The new regulation does not allow for this, what matters now are the stated hours for purchase or sale of alcohol irrespective of quantity.

[dtaai-maai]

Surely the most crucial aspect of all this is not supermarket selling times, but whether or not you can have a beer or a glass of wine with your Sunday lunch?

[STEVE G]

I can't really understand what changing the law on wholesale purchasing will achieve apart from making life more complicated for people in the business. Surely virtually no one buys a large quantity of alcohol between 2 and 5pm to drink immediately, they buy it for the evening. Perhaps the person told to make more restrictive laws on alcohol is a drinker and that was the most harmless new law he could think of!

[Chazz14]

In my village, if the local p++s heads haven't arrived at the village shop and started on the lao kao by about 1000, the owner would probably call the police and report them as missing persons!