Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing entertainment venues specifically the 4am or proposed 4am closing time of entertainment venues and what we are talking about here is there are those in Thailand who believe that, and this is at a policy level, who believe that it would be a boon to the country to allow for certain entertainment venues to remain open until 4am rather than being required to close at 2am which is the current state of affairs. My big issue with this has proven to be the media's reporting on it. Up to now in many outlets this has been reported as if it's a foregone conclusion that this extension of opening hours is not going to occur when in point of fact it's still very much up in the air and they are still researching it which brings me to this recent article from the Nation, that is nationthailand.com, the article is titled: Tourism Minister wants 8.7 billion Thai Baht, 4 am closing for night venues next year. Quoting directly: "Phiphat," and Phiphat, they are talking about Phiphat Ratchaitprakarn the Minister of Tourism and Sports I believe," quoting directly: "Phiphat said he will also ask the Cabinet to extend opening hours of entertainment venues until 4am. The extended opening hours will be piloted on Bangla Walking Street in Phuket's Krathu district for 6 months from January.” Quoting further: “Bangla Walking Street was chosen because over 70% of its visitors are foreign tourists and therefore have higher spending potential, he added. Quote: "Preliminary studies estimate that allowing Phuket pubs to open until 4am instead of 2am will generate 25% more tourism income," Phiphat said." Quoting further: "However, the proposal has met with firm opposition from other government agencies including the Public Health Ministry as well as civic groups. It is due to be reviewed by the National Alcoholic Beverage Policy Committee headed by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on Thursday."

Again, as we discussed in another video we made contemporaneously or shortly after this one or shortly before this one I should say, we made this one shortly after that one, there has been this kind of, again I see this float around in the ether of the internet especially expat news. I have seen this sort of floating around as if it's a foregone conclusion that No this extension of opening hours is definitely not going to occur in 2 am will remain the closing time. Well that is not the case yet and as we can see there is serious effort being made to study this. As we can see there is going to be a pilot program in the first half of 2023 and I find it really odd that the press, the media has been out there sort of stating that okay this is already done, this isn't going to happen, it's a fait accompli. Well it isn't. There has been no final decision on this. Who's to say if there will even be a final decision? It could be tabled this week and we might not see a full final decision. So something just in a general sense that has been really irking me lately has been just reading all of this stuff in the especially  the English language press here in Thailand and you just see, hey you are saying or you are alluding oftentimes or implying something or sometimes it is just outright said. We saw this with the issue of foreign land ownership. It was discussed as if it was a full gun conclusion and then low and behold, because no final decision had ever been made it looked kind of bad in the media that there was some kind of reversal where there had never been a reversal because there had never been a decision made in the first place. That's the similar situation we are sitting here with entertainment venue closing hours and opening hours, and let me be clear, as to the merits of the arguments in favour of opening longer or not in favour of opening longer, I am not even going to get into that. The long and the short of it is I just kind of wanted to make this video and the one that I made shortly before we made this one, to remind folks that "hey look this hasn't been decided. No matter what the media says there is still due process and we are still going through it", so it remains to be seen where this ends up. We will certainly keep you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.