The continuing ban on alcohol sales makes no sense.
I support measures to combat the coronavirus, but the ban on alcohol sales simply doesn’t help. It is killing businesses and creating poverty among laid-off workers. It is at the sharp end that this ban is most damaging.
In the hospitality industry, there is real pain being felt by laid-off workers and business owners alike. Laid-off workers have no money in their pockets and businesses already struggling before the crisis are now staring into the abyss of bankruptcy.
To business owners in this situation, the alcohol ban feels like a kick in the teeth. It isn’t enough to allow restaurants to open selling only food.
Years of the overly strong baht and increasing costs mean that most proper restaurants are only viable if they can also sell alcohol.
The hospitality industry is the central pillar of tourism in Thailand, as well as serving a vital social role, in that it provides employment for many hundreds of thousands of less well-educated Thais.
Quite apart from anything else, the ban is universally unpopular and undermines the goodwill the authorities need to make the anti-Covid-19 measures effective.
No other country has instigated an alcohol ban, for good reason.
Of course insist on proper precautions to keep Covid-19 under control, but with new infection rates now firmly in single figures, I urge the government to act fast to lift the ban on alcohol sales.
(Source: – Bangkok Post)