marketing of niche brands and promising to breathe fresh air into Thailand’s craft-brewing industry. But the big issue for many retailers, and particularly for Thai and tourist consumers, was liberalisation of liquor sales hours, which has again been rejected by the Public Health Ministry. Sales of alcoholic beverages will continue to be restricted to 11am-2pm and 5pm-midnight, seven days a week. In some sense, it was good news for Thailand’s mom-and-pop retailers that the proposal was once more snuffed out by Thailand’s fussy health regulators. The principal mainstream liquor sellers are supermarkets, hypermarkets and convenience stores, which have to stick to the letter of the law. Selling outside the legal hours incurs fines and/or prison terms, and Thai jails are not well known for their luxuriousness. In theory, the same punitive measures apply to the hundreds and thousands of small independent grocers around the country that sell liquor — sometimes very discreetly, sometimes not– in the off-hours to thirsty and appreciative customers. They can do this because the restrictions are extremely difficult to enforce when there are so many mom-and-pops and when they are often the commercial lifeblood of their local communities. Indeed, this is part of Thailand’s immense charm: the importance of genuine community (now often missing in the West) often trumps persnickety enforcement of the letter of the law, and to many, that’s the way it should be. The supermarkets and convenience chains will be miffed, though, not to mention tourists, who are usually puzzled and put out by the regulations, which seem overly nitpicky and unnecessary. To make things even more weird, the trading hours restrictions are not even enshrined in legislation but rather are a decree put in place by a military junta that ruled Thailand back in the early 1970s. The junta’s leader, Thanom Kittikachorn, had three pet hates: communists, dissenters and lazy bureacrats. The latter, he opined, would buck up and be more productive if they weren’t allowed to tipple in the afternoon. Some would argue that he got that one wrong. So, what did get passed? There was some joy for all retailers, chains and independents in the legislation that did get passed in the form of the Community Liquor Act that became law in June. It lifts restrictions on alcohol production by individual entrepreneurs and other small-scale operators that prevented them from distilling and selling their products. The restrictions had protected the cosy cartel of the two dominant brewers, Boon Rawd and Thai Beverage. The objectives of the new legislation are to stimulate local economic development, particularly in rural areas, and expand the liquor universe so that a broader variety of niche products become available to the consuming public. Now that the bill has passed both houses of the Thai parliament, it will come under the scrutiny of the Finance Ministry for the nitty-gritty of implementation over the next six months. Maybe the trading hours will get sorted soon All well and good, but what about the pesky trading hours? There are currently quite a lot of legislative proposals floating around the parliament relating to liquor (no fewer than five draft laws are on the table), and it’s possible that the trading hours situation will still get sorted. For now, it has failed to withstand the hot glare of the Health Ministry’s alcoholic beverage control committee, which still frets that liberalisation of the kingdom’s trading hours will lead to more mayhem on the roads. As if there really could be more. It is a well-known anecdotal fact in Thailand that a lot of people drive drunk: the biggest traffic violation by far is driving under the influence of alcohol, followed a long way back by driving without a licence and driving under the influence of narcotics. Thailand’s overall road accident fatality statistics are horrendous to put it mildly: according to the World Health Organization, Thailand was in the top 10 out of 175 countries for road traffic fatalities, with a staggering 50 deaths every day. There are other little safety issues relating to Thai culture that worry the liquor regulators, including drinking contests and other specially staged and impromptu festive events that the regulators think could get worse if liquor became more accessible during the day. Counterbalancing this is the awareness of how important international tourism is to the country’s economy and how the restrictions might be a turn-off for visitors. Thailand is also very conscious of its carefully nurtured international image as a modern, or at least modernising, country, and how its liquor laws need to be in line with the country’s pretensions. This will all lead eventually to the relaxation of the laws; the only question is how soon? While the trading hours decree has now dragged out well past its 52nd anniversary, Thailand got way ahead of itself in decriminalising the use of cannabis, and in a monumental example of trying to get toothpaste back in a tube, is trying to get it criminalised again for recreational use. The urgency with which it has gone about this is in stark contrast to its approach to liquor laws: the Health Ministry has already issued the order, and it’s possible that within a matter of days, it will only be possible to purchase cannabis with a doctor’s prescription. The doctors in Thailand are about to get very busy. Further reading: Thailand moves to recriminalise cannabis, shaking US$1 billion industry