Thailand has strange alcohol laws... and now they are enforcing them

Thailand is a strange tourism-hungry country. They depend a great deal on tourism for their GDP, but it seems like every couple of months the government arbitrarily changes the rules of this country in a confusing way that irritates tourists and locals alike.

I have always been confused by the laws regarding when alcohol can be sold because in every shop there are signs and even locks on the beer coolers not just after a certain time of night, but also every afternoon from 2pm to 5pm. I understand wanting to limit people's ability to access booze after a certain time of night - as someone who likes to sleep this makes a lot of sense to me - but the afternoon limitations on alcohol purchase has never made much sense to me.

There are also certain religious days or the night before an election where the sale of alcohol is completely cut off.

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According to some people, the law for restricting the sale of booze between 2-5pm originated with something related to schools such as not wanting parents to be too drunk to pick the kids up or also so that kids leaving school to go home can't have access to alcohol. If there is truth to this rumor, I think both of them are pretty dumb because a drunk mum or dad that is going to drive something is still going to drive drunk even if they can't buy NEW drinks during that time. If it is about children not being able to buy alcohol they are not legally allowed to get alcohol during any time of day so the cutoff during these hours also doesn't make sense.

In the past businesses and especially bars would get around the afternoon ban on booze sales simply by selling you the alcohol before 2pm (or claiming they did) because the ban was on the SALE of alcohol, not the consumption of it. Also, small minimarts run by people who appear to be quite poor seemed to be exempted from the rule which just meant that people had to walk around the corner from 7-11 to buy it somewhere else. I supported this when I thought that was the case.

However, as of November 8th, the police in Thailand have changed the rule that now it applies to both sales and consumption between these hours meaning that if you weren't watching the clock and bought a beer at 1:50 in the afternoon and it was still on your table at 2:05, technically you could be subjected to a fine of up to 10,000 Baht (around $300).

To me this just kind of sounds like yet another avenue for the police to seek bribes from people. I'm not much of a day-drinker, or really much of a drinker at all, so this hasn't really affected my life a great deal but I have been at a supermarket at a particular time of day and have been told that I cannot buy the 6 pack of beer in my trolly and this is more embarrassing than anything else.

For tourists though, especially in beach tourism areas, this is a rather big deal. Imagine you are on vacation, enjoying yourself on the beach and you feel like having some afternoon beers with your family or friends, well now you can't.

I have read that there will be exceptions for some "tourism zones," whatever that means, but the fact remains that this afternoon ban on the sale and now consumption of alcohol is just really bizarre and perhaps needs to go away.

last year there was talk about making it go away but politicians seem to feel this rather insane need to be doing something so instead of making the afternoon ban go away, they doubled down on it.

Just like most things in Thailand, I can assure you that this rule/law will not end up applying to anyone wealthy.

I popped over to reddit to see if anyone over there knew why the 2-5pm ban on sales exists and this was the best answer

I honestly think that is the real answer: It is something that some popular politician proposed in the 70's and it's just remained on the books this entire time.

I have been in Phuket, which is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the entire country, and have seen some people in swimsuits getting close to what I would call irate when told they cannot buy any beer for the next 3 hours. While I think their behavior was unruly getting angry like that at a waitress who has no power, I also can identify with the angry tourist as well. The rule doesn't really make any sense.

What is super surprising about them doubling down on this silly law is that at the same time, Thailand is lamenting the fact that for the first time since anyone bothered to keep records on this sort of thing, Thailand is not the number one vacation destination in South East Asia. They were bypassed by Malaysia and now Vietnam seems to be gaining steam on tourism numbers despite the fact that they don't really even appear to want to be a tourism destination. I've been hearing from a lot of people that Vietnam is the place to be these days. Who knows? I have never been there.

Thailand doesn't a lot of things very strangely but this 2-5pm ban on sales just seems to be some sort of long-standing mystery to everyone living here. Also, often when these sorts of super-enforcement rollouts happen, they only happen for a month or so and then it returns to business as usual.

In the meantime though ,there are a lot of people and businesses in the tourism industry that are pleading with the government to stop meddling with rules like this because the tourism industry is already suffering big time. Chiang Mai certainly has felt the crunch as far as tourism is concerned... this used to be a very popular backpacking destination but in the "backpackers part of town" I noticed that almost all of the guesthouses have closed down and I rarely see any backpackers ever wandering around. It seems as though the Chinese, who were once a very big part of the customer mix here, have all but disappeared as well.

When will the government realize that the best thing they can do for tourism is just get out of the way and instead of making more and more rules, to just help out with public safety? It seems to work in other countries and it used to be that way here... why not try that again?