Sweet Dreams short time bar has re-opened after a 2 month break. Licensing problems have been cited as the reason.

Billy's Boozer (previously British Bulldog) has scaled back to a skeleton staff. No girls on hand.

The old Northumberland Arms bar has been redeveloped into a massage shop.

Legs Club A-GoGo opened on Soi Pattayaland 2 on 26th June 2008. The venue was previously home to Misty's A-GoGo. The new management have bucked the trend and decided that the interior is perfectly OK and did not need major renovations.

Actually the staff were familiar, as the bar have recruited dancers, service and mamasang previously working at Baby Dolls.

There were only about 10 girls working on the first night. There were dome pretty faces and about half were dancing topless. Never fair to assess the dancers on the first night though, and there will be an update when the bar has had time to come up to speed.

The drinks prices are comparable to Walking Street prices, but perversely, this is cheap for Pattayaland.

I enjoyed a short visit and even on its rather low key opening, it is already the best gogo on Pattayaland.

The gogo opens for early evening trade at 5:30pm but also closes early at 1am

There are now 74 GoGo bars in Pattaya offering dancing girls in bikinis or less.

If you thought your password made it safe for you to post nude photos of your Thai teerak on a Pattaya Internet message board, think again. Pattaya police not only have “Level 2" access, but some enterprising officers are hunting down amateur pornographers and their models and demanding payoffs under threat of jail time.

They’re going around all the bars looking for the girls and then getting the girls to tell them who shot the photos. Then they’re hitting the girls up for small amounts of money and the farangs for big money.

...Read full article

The next incarnation of the old Mistys A-GoGo is being fitted out and will be called Legs Club.

Soi Pattayaland is becoming a little gender confused so the new bar sign emphasises that it will be girls girls girls.

Club Nevada is located on Soi 13/2 (Soi Post Office)

The bar was closed as I walked past with workers in pulling out old materials. At a quick glance it looked like the bar was being refitted. Hopefully it will be back soon.

Update: Back Open

The bar was closed for 2 days for deep cleaning

Club Oasis is located on Soi Buakhao.

The bar is trying afternoon opening again from 3pm. It has been pretty quiet so far though.

Night March is reporting that Rock Girls A-GoGo in Soi 15 looks set to be the next Pattaya closure.

It is always difficult to run a small gogo and they rarely seem to prosper. Presumably because it is difficult to get the balance of girls right. If there are not many girls, it only takes a few bar fines before the bars dies from a lack of girls. If there are more customers in than than par the bar looks packed, and if there are less than par, it is dead.

So as a bit of a quiz which small gogo, say a dozen girls or less, has made the best of a difficult challenge.

Update: Smile

Thanks to Pattaya Ghost who tells me that the gogo has already been sold and is now open as Smile Girls A-GoGo

Noi's Beer Bar is located on Pattaya's Dark Side, ie east of Sukhumvit Road. It is to be found 400n down Soi Khao Noi

The police have closed Noi's for 30 days from 13th June to 12th July. This is for staying open after Thailand's early bedtime policy of midnight closing.

Thankfully the majority of Pattaya's bars are in a designated entertainment zone where late opening is allowed. Horribly unfair on the bars outside the one though.

Update: More Raids

14th June 2008

Number One Bar, Da Bar and Rimco's Bar have also been raided. All had a member of their staff incarcerated, and all are now eagerly awaiting the verdict of the judge.

Update: More Casualties

16th June 2008

Cock Inn seems to be on a 30 day closure along with The Black Bush

Pattaya is currently seeing an influx of military visitors as several ships are anchored nearby.

The bar owner and girls will surely appreciate the extra trade at the moment.

Perhaps to acknowledge an otherwise dead zone, some of Pattaya's gogos have improved their happy hours offerings.

Sisterz recently jerked its prices upwards especially by inventing a super stars barfine of 1500 Baht. The bar also tried to re-jig its happy hour into a 2 for 1 deal rather than cheap prices. I can see the idea from the owner's point of view that it keeps people in longer. But from the customers point of view, if the bar is a bit dead is not worth staying in then 2 for 1 simply is no bargain at all.

Anyway, Sisterz have now restored a good happy hour with nearly all drinks at 45 Baht.

Hooty's has also decided to establish a happy hour. Bottled beer is sold at 70 Baht and spirits at 50 Baht. (There's no draft beer at Hooty's so drinking bottled beer during the quiet early hours was previously very poor value indeed)

Time Gentlemen Please! Haven't you got homes to go to!

The dark side of Pattaya to the east of Sukhumvit Road is outside of Pattaya's Entertainment Zone. Thankfully this zone coverts most of the bar areas and are nominally allowed to open until 2am (and at the moment much later)

On Thursday night Noi's bar had been singled out for a police raid but looks like another 3 or 4 bars have also been raided in the last couple of nights for the obscene crime of opening after midnight and it is in force everywhere.

If this police policy continues then it will clobber the evening trade in the area. Anyone wanting to have a beer or two will simply travel a little further into central Pattaya.

Highway Star A-GoGo is upstairs in the Pier Complex at the beginning of Walking Street. It recently tried to re-model itself as a show bar but that hasn't worked.

Highway Star has been dark for the last few days, and I notice that it is up for sale (advert in Pattaya People News). Looks like it has closed.

The girl GoGo count is now down to 74 operating in Pattaya and Jomtien.

Voodoo beer bars were open last night, but not the old gogo is still closed whilst it is being converted to an inside bar.

Other news: Apparently about 10 "Cigarette Police" visited bars on soi 15 on Thursday (and elsewhere?), making sure there was no smoking. All bars on soi 15 now non-smoking (for the moment).

The Voodoo complex on Walking Street contains a gogo and half a dozen open beer bars.

The complex has been dark for the last month

The beer bars will re-open on 5th June after a police closure. The builders are in at the gogo and it is being converted into closed bar

Byblos is a smallish upstairs bar on the corner of Pratamnak Road and Soi Diamond

It seems that the bar hasn't proved a long term hit with Pattaya farangs and the bar is now targeting customers using touts on 2nd Road. This tends to attract a more Middle Eastern/South Asian customer base than the Walking Street norm.

The bar has also opted for bells and whistles shows

And just to complete the transformation to inanity, the draft beer is now set at 90 Baht and bottled beer is 140 Baht.

Bye Bye Byblos

It is worth checking out a new blog called Pattaya Ghost which brings a little journalistic know how to the Pattaya blog scene.

Today Pattaya Ghost reports that the smoking ban has indeed hit Walking Street and the ash trays have taken a hike.

It is also reported that the gogos and Walking Street in general has taken a hit presumably because smokers have decided to stay home or possibly to try their look in the Soi 7/8 open bar area.

It will be interesting to see the long term impact. Many places have banned smoking but maybe Thailand is unusual in that there is still an option to smoke in open bars. There is the possibility that it will be a long term effect that a fair amount of customers will go from inside bars to outside bars. And maybe a similar percentage of attractive girls will follow the customers.

There's an interesting rumour from Kuka on Pattaya Secrets suggesting 1500 police have been recruited to enforce the ban.

Listen to this...You wont believe it.

New York Mayor (Billionaire) Micheal Bloomberg is the reason for the smoking ban in Thailand. He donated $1 million Bucks to Thailand to get this Law enacted.

The Thai's complained about the law enforcement limitations and they got 1500 new Thai POLICE to enforce the smoking Ban.

Its WIN WIN for the "Not-So-NON-Corrupt Thai Police".....its another tool to extort money from the Bar Industry.

Bar owners BEWARE...there will be undercover POLICE in the bars ready to pounce on Owners for violation of this law..................20,000 Baht Fines.

If you think I'm Lying, just wait a few weeks............

The advisory no smoking period is now over and the police can now fine you for smoking in an indoor bar to the tune of 2000 Baht.

Even more serious is that the bar will be fined 20,000 Baht. Serious money and therefore serious arguments could arise from a bad situation. (Maybe if people smoke without invitation then perhaps owners may expect the customer to cough up the 20,000)

If the police take this opportunity of extra cash for good causes then smoking in bars is very likely to be seriously curtailed. Both by the police extracting fines, and the bars owners making sure they are not stung.

On the other hand it could be quietly ignored.

I saw a comment on a board last week about the rules of engagement. Basically the poster was saying he was not going to approach the girls and if they did not approach him nothing was going to happen. That approach will work in just about every bar in Pattaya but it will not work at the Pattaya Beer Garden. You must make first contact. If you can’t or won’t do that then the PBG is probably not for you. If you approach a girl at the bar I can almost guarantee that you will not be rebuffed. The girls are there to find a man after all. Even fat old balding people like me are seen as desirable meat mates. So don’t be shy just say Hi. The rest will follow naturally and without pressure.

We are in to out June promotions now. The freelancer discount continues. Bring your own freelancer and receive a 100 baht discount off your order. Please ask clearly for "The Freelancer Discount" when ordering.

Happy hours are 3 pm to 5 pm and then again 9 pm to 11 pm every day. All bottled beers are 50 baht (except Corona). This week we have permanently lowered the price of Corona and Strongbow.

A new thing we are trying in June is the "Sunset Promotion". The PBG is a great place to watch the sunset each evening around 6:30 pm. It can be quite spectacular. From 5:30 pm to 7 pm each night we are offering the "Sunset Special". A plate of Thai h'orderves and a Sundowner cocktail for two hundred baht. The Thai snacks are very tasty and farang friendly (will not blow your head off) and the Sundowner cocktail packs a bit of a wallop with three shots of the hard stuff.