or example, retail property, large grocery chains) that have their own legitimate agendas. Yet nettlesome restrictions remain everywhere you look, ranging from the notorious ‘blue laws’ in Bergen County, New Jersey, to restrictions on Sunday trading in Europe, to a patchwork of regulations in Australian states and territories. Liquor sales tend to be under even greater restrictions than general retail sales, but in this regard, the Kingdom of Thailand is a clear outlier. Is this about to change? Legislation to reform the much disliked Alcohol Beverage Control Act (2008) has now passed the House of Representatives, and is awaiting ratification from the Senate, which may embrace the changes less enthusiastically and could still be a party pooper, since the chamber is controlled by a party whose main claim to fame is its fickleness. There are two big changes in the new legislation that has passed the House and will come into force if it squeaks by in the Senate: trading hours and advertising.  Liquor retail sales hours First, one of the most annoying obstacles to fun is the current prohibition on the sale of booze between 2pm and 5pm, and then from midnight to 11am. This prohibition actually dates all the way back to the early 1970s, when the leader of the then-military junta that ruled Thailand, Thanom Kittikachorn, disliked people drinking alcohol with as much fervour as he disliked communists. The junta passed a decree with restrictions on liquor trading hours that have survived to this very day. (The major motivation for the decree, it is thought, was to prevent government bureaucrats from drinking during working hours, but given the productivity of Thailand’s bureaucracy, it is hard to see how boozing on the job would make things too much worse.) The regulation had, and still has, three principal ramifications. The first and most obvious is that it causes consumers to have to shift the timing of purchases or risk missing out in the afternoon and after midnight. The second relates to the genius of the Thai people for identifying and exploiting loopholes in every government regulation. In this case, little mom-and-pop shops, of which there are hundreds of thousands in Thailand, step up to fill in the liquorless void. Many, though not all, will sell beer, whisky, wine or your other favourite tipple during those bleak afternoons when the supermarkets and convenience stores can’t. Many are tucked away down grubby little alleys in the larger cities or on the main drags of rural towns. Most sell a motley selection of necessity items for the household, but remarkably, even some independent pharmacies sell alcohol. The third ramification of the trading hours restriction is more nuanced: During the afternoon and morning hours, when supermarkets are open but liquor sales forbidden, the liquor sections – and these are typically very large – are literally roped off, creating an eyesore and at the same time a kind of refuge for some of the staff, who can position themselves comfortably between the cabernet and the chardonnay to play on their phones. Thailand needs to get in line Part of the resistance to making the liquor retail laws more liberal is the desire to restrict unsafe behaviours that many fear could be exacerbated with readier access to alcohol. Traffic safety is one thing, and special events like drinking contests (a favourite Thai pastime) is another. However, there is also a keen awareness that Thailand needs to be more in line with international standards, particularly as the economy relies so heavily on tourists who expect trading hours to be more consistent with practices in their own countries. Another thing that tends to shock unsuspecting tourists is the blanket ban on alcohol sales on important religious days (referred to colloquially as ‘Buddha days’) and on provincial and national government election days. There are five religious days with alcohol bans in Thailand, with the next one coming up on May 11. The government has relaxed the ban on these days, not to the extent of full liberalisation, but at least to designate some tourism-oriented areas as alcohol sales zones. What else is in the new legislation? Lifting restrictions on advertising alcohol products by repealing Section 32 of the 2008 Act is the other major plank of the legislation. The prohibition of advertising has been to the detriment of Thailand’s budding craft beer industry, unable to market their products to compete on an even playing field with the two big brewers, Boon Rawd and Thai Beverage.  While Boon Rawd and Thai Beverage could market their products via global sponsorships (for example, you’ve seen the beer brands on the shirts of English Premier League teams), the local brewers had their hands tied. The House of Representatives was overwhelmingly in favour of Section 32 repeal, voting 371-1. Among those who celebrated the legislative triumph was People’s Party MP Thaophipop Limjittrakarn, who himself at one point had run a microbrewery and been arrested for his troubles. Even if the new legislation gets by the Senate (and supporters think they have the numbers), there are concerns that regulators will, after the fact, sandbag some of the changes. Millions of Thais will hope not, and millions of tourists, too, who have been unsuspecting victims of the old law. And if you are stepping off a plane in Thailand on May 11 and you are looking to dampen your throat with a cold brew in Thailand’s merciless summer heat, you might just get lucky with the very first ‘Buddha day’ subject to relaxed liquor retail sales.