The bone of contention.
The low season cometh and thus the season of bitching by bar owners has arrived. One look at the Plaza last Thursday night and the realities of low season were obvious for all to see. So this bitching bar owner told me a story. One of his girls asked where all her bar fines were: she had managed a mere 6 in the previous month. “In your phone,” had been the bitching owner’s response and the girl had looked sheepish and closed the subject.
Any truthful (and there are not many) gogo owner in the plaza will tell you that in reality trade is down to nearly a third from where it was at it’s peak of about three/four years ago. The financial numbers decrease is not so dramatic because of price increases but the bottle, case and bar fine sales are down by that amount.
Most punters will say the problem lies in the early closing times and the lack of showing. It also lies in the loss of Bangkok’s reputation as an open city. People who want to play , and play hard, now go else where. Thailand’s own single handed reputation saving committee, named Purachai for short, has changed the reputation. But as the bitching owner pointed out there are more girls than ever prowling the streets of Bangkok living off foreign earnings. The smart girl these days is a freelancer who can pick up all she needs in the discos and in the freelancer bars, and if the worst comes to the worst on the streets.
Think back a few years to the pre-Purachai era and there were not many girls on the streets. There were around Lumpini Park, outside the nick, but in Sukhumvit there may have been a few sad katoys but not the legion of scrounging pussy that now takes to that street every night.
And of course this battalion of none aligned strumpets makes the job of those selling their own that much harder. Indeed why pay a bar fine when you can so easily avoid doing so?
Not a wonder then those poor gogo owners have had their income decimated to the point where savings have to be made. One holiday a month instead of two: new wheels every other year. Oh yes it is hard running a gogo bar in the Plaza now!
But what are the owners doing about this loss of income. There is still clearly the demand: the streets outside show that. And yes the bone in the average harlots pocket will keep her in touch with those who want to avail themselves of her services: thus depriving the poverty stricken gogo owner of repeat business.
What would get the punters back in the bars and the gogos and the fallen legion back in the ranks?
Later closing would help: it is one thing to make an assignation for 1.30 am, quite another if you have to wait till 3, or even 4am. And that would help in both directions as even the hopefuls on the streets will not enjoy hanging around till dawn for the doubtful pickings of those with drink taken struggling home after a long session.
But the real problem is that the gogo owners have totally failed to counter act what is happening. My bitching friend is one of the better operators but even he has not really changed anything from four years ago other than go with the flow of new regulation. Part of the problem in Nana Plaza itself: nobody can call it an attractive place. It looks like, and is, a faded red light district. There is no innovation by gogo owners and the one example of innovation is sometimes copied but never bettered. And that bar is not nearly as badly affected as the others.
If gogo owners want their punters back they have to give value for money and give people a good reason to go to the gogo. High prices and hand wringing simply make matters worse.
There is only one thing that will stop the bitching and that is failure. The problem is that the bars in Nana Plaza make money. When they stop making money is the day the bar owners will start thinking about how and why and start reacting. So my bitching friend it is the mobile and the early closing that has decreased your income: but blame your own inaction as well!
First published on baronbonk.com