Department of Health begs for responsible drinking in restaurants
The Department of Health is warning people that the permission granted to serve alcohol in restaurants in key tourist destinations must be used responsibly without people overdoing the boozing. They are asking restaurants not to serve drinks after the allowed hours and asking patrons to not overdo their drinking.
Now that the government has dedicated Blue Zones for the primary tourist locations of Bangkok, Phuket, Krabi, and Phang Nga and are allowing drinking alcohol at restaurants, they hope tourists will be excited to return to the areas for a somewhat normal holiday. But they fear that once people begin drinking freely, rules and safety regulations will go out the window.
The Director-General of the Department of Health said that they have mostly seen good compliance with restaurants following all the regulations, but believe that plenty of restaurants – and many, many drunken customers – will quickly become lenient with time limits and social distancing rules.
The Department politely said that intoxicated people have lowered cognitive abilities – put more directly, people get drunk and stupid – and will not keep in mind their safety and the safety of others with the risk of Covid-19 infections.
They are calling on restaurants to exercise caution in following the rules that provincial communicable diseases committees lay out, prevent overcrowding and lack of safe social distancing, and abide by all drinking curfews enacted.
Thailand has taken a hard line against drinking and the nightlife and entertainment venues like bars and clubs that sell alcohol since the majority of outbreaks at the onset of the third wave of Covid-19 that broke the countries streak of minimal infections were traced back to unregulated drinking in the HiSo bars and entertainment venues of places like Thong Lor in Bangkok. Drinking has been mostly forbidden throughout Thailand for the last 7 months.
SOURCE: National News Bureau of Thailand
