The Soi 8 beer bars in front of the old Prince Hotel are about to be demolished to make way for a new complex (to be known as Baron complex) which will have around 20 new beer bars and 2 Disco / GoGo bars. There will be one sound system for the whole complex and hopefully security to keep out vendors.

Work will begin on this on May 1st. So the last date of trading for Hammer's Cherry Bar is the 30th April. The new complex will open in a month or two's time.

Hammer will relocate his staff and girls to a new bar taking over from The Butterfly Bar. This is located on Beach Road between Soi 13 and Soi 13/1 (Soi Yamato). It is opposite the Right Spot and next to the Scandanavian Bar.

It will open on May 1st. The official opening party for Cherry Bar 2 will be on the 5th May to coincide with manager Nam's  birthday.

A new premium beer is to be launched in Thailand. Under the brand Federbräu Thai Beverage, owner of Chang beer, is launching a beer it’s labeling as premium all around.

Federbräu will be the only beer distributed in Thailand which strictly adheres to Germany’s legendary Reinheitsgebot Purity Law of 1516, which stipulates that only the natural ingredients of barley-malt, hops, yeast and brewing water are used in the brewing process.

From the blurb: Federbräu is a premium blond beer made to a traditional European style recipe from all natural ingredients. The name Federbräu translates from the German as feather brew.

The beer has an alcohol content of 4.7%.

Bret of Bret Bar in Soi 6 suffered a heart attack and auto crash in October of 2006, rendering him essentially incapacitated. Recovery was very slow for Bret, but there was clear progress being made through 2007. Recently, however, that changed, and his health went into a rapid decline. Last Tuesday, April 22, his heart problems overcame him.

Bret’s funeral is being conducted in Thai/Buddhist tradition and the Wat (temple) in Naklua, where he will be cremated in the afternoon on 28th April

Bret loved Pattaya, and Bret loved to laugh, have a drink, or three, and party with his mates. May, his wife, has decided to send him off the way he would want to be sent off, with a party. Balloons, free food, and who knows what else.

The party will begin at about 4 or so on Tuesday 29th April, and run till whenever. The highlight of the night will be a special send off toast to Bret, at 8pm. Whether you knew him or not, you are all invited to join us and send him off just the way he would have wanted.

The Pattaya buzz is that there are now 2 weekends of bar closures coming up. So the bars will close on Saturday at 6pm on 26th April and reopen for evening drinking on the Sunday.

Similarly the bars will close at 6pm on Saturday 3rd May to hopefully reopen on Sunday evening.

As I feared, Songkran reared its ugly head and progress over the past week has been virtually non-existent. The new bar had been a hive of activity but I got a quick feeling for how Songkran week was going to go when I turned up on Friday 11 April and instead of seeing 20 workers going for it, there was one lonely man in the corner doing some tiling.

The sad reality. It will come right though in due course.

Well today is the 20th and we are not ready to open. I have high hopes that all my workers will reappear on Monday and we will be set to have the soft opening this Thursday (24 April). We should definitely be go for the official opening on 29 April . . . that is next Tuesday.

Moral of the story - don't try and build a bar during Songkran week coz it aint going to happen

The big job still waiting some serious action is the Kitchen but now our Chef is on the case I expect that to come together quickly.

I’ve spoken with a few freelancers about the project and they have all been quite enthusiastic about the new venue. We have some great promotions ready to launch to help drag them in and introduce them to the bar. More on this once the opening is at hand.

Our firm dates for opening our now 20 April soft opening. It could be a little dodgy from a service point of view for the first few days as we work out all the bugs in the system and do some serious staff training. We still look good for the official opening party on the 29th April.

A new disco and coyote bar has opened at the Soi 8 venue that was previously Oasis Coyote in the old Prince Hotel.

I was passing by way too early but I thought I would pop in to take a look anyway.

It was a total disaster with in the first minute of walking in. First of all they had opened the bar before there was any conceivable entertainment. They had not even turned on the music. But I thought I would at least look around and ask the staff about the bar.

Within the first minute, a ladyboy arrived at my table to take my drinks order only to get it wrong. He then thought that he could hang round for a ladyboy drink. His opening conversational gambit was: one drink for me?

Quickly dismissing the unwelcome dancing boy, I asked a service girl about the bar. Apparently it is a disco with some coyote dancing.

The drinks prices are set around the 120-140 baht mark but there is much cheaper happy hour. There are drinks menus on the tables.

The layout of the bar consists of a lounge area with decent seating and then a dancing area with a couple of dancing stages and a prominent stage for the DJ. There were incredibly tacky, wobbling stools dotted around.

Surely the bar will have to improve on the customer experience this early bird received. Otherwise they will just have to rely on the famous brand name to entice a few Pattaya newbies.

As from 7th April all drinks excluding lady drinks and cocktails will be 89b until further notice.

I'm not sure whether it was a temporary problem or else a permanent change, but there was no draft beer available a few days ago.

Sakura Club is located on Walking Street: Soi 15 opposite What's Up

After all you guys asking the beautiful girls of V2O, we have decided to give in to all you handsome men out there. We now have a bar fine policy in place at 500 Baht.

V20 is the ice cold vodka bar on Walking Street: Soi Happy.

Things are not looking good at the Mandarin Club and also at the Mandarin Beer Bar on Soi 6.

Mandarin Club was closed on Sunday evening and is without ladies in attendance on Monday.

However things seemed back to normal on Tuesday

No rumours as yet about what was up.

In response to the nightly run around caused by the recent police enforced early closing:

We have cut the price of bar fines for the next 7 days to a cost of 100 Baht after 2am each night!

Guys at this price the bar makes NOTHING but we wish to show you that coming to Thailand is not all bad and to start this we are offering you this discount for a limited time.

so please do drop into the bar find your self a girl or 5.

It has also been reported that the police haven't been closing the bars at 2am for a few days now. There seems to be a low music/no outside lights/discreet bins, compromise when bars are allowed to stay open.

After what seems an eternity the fourth edition of Pattaya by Night magazine is finally available.

As with the third edition, it runs to 56 pages, filled with glossy colour pictures of gogo ladies from the very best dens in Fun Town.

The layout has had a professional graphic artist do things to the pages which make this edition a real standout and the best so far.

The price remains the same, at 150 baht.

Dave the Rave reports that Catz is up for sale.

Meanwhile the closure of Ocean 10 maybe a temporary affair for renovation (that was quick). The band may relocate to Hammer Disco which will re-open soon complete with an escalator.

Pattaya business operators are protesting about the RS Company‘s attempt to collect a copyright fee for viewing the Euro Football Championship 2008 on their TV screens. The business operators maintain that it constitutes a double collection and they are being taken advantage of.

On 29th March 2008, the RS Company, the copyright owners, made a general announcement that they intend to collect a copyright fee for viewing the Euro Football Championship 2008 from 7 – 29 June. This will affect all public venues nationwide, including hotels, restaurants, local and late night eating place who intend to use the TV football championship broadcasts to attract customers. The copyright fees range from Bt2,000 to 5,000 for the whole tournament. Violators will be prosecuted and jailed from 6 months to 4 years or fined from Bt100,000 – 800,000 baht. The business operators are complaining that this will have a direct impact on businesses nationwide, but especially on the 500 businesses affected around Pattaya, and they regard the copyright fee as totally unacceptable.

One Pattaya business operator, Akarawit Thephasit, the owner of Heineken Draft Beer Court, located in front of Big C, North Pattaya, which attracts many Thai and foreigner customers, echoing the views of many of his fellow owners, protested that this was effectively a double fee as they had already paid the copyright fee on Thai and foreign music already and the practice was unfair. However, he is afraid that if a regulation act is instituted, compliance will be mandatory and violators will be prosecuted.