AT LEAST five Phuket bars were being closed and staff evicted today from a bar and restaurant zone behind the popular Club Med resort in Kata.

Furniture and speakers were being carried from the bars, on the main road between Karon and Kata, this morning.

Demolition of the bars was expected to begin as soon as everything had been removed.

A bulldozer was waiting to go into action, but police told the driver it was too large for the task and was likely to disrupt traffic.

The big bulldozer left and was expected to be replaced by a smaller demolition machine this afternoon.

The clearance is expected to see the end of the B Good Bar and Restaurant, the Honey/Haney Bar, Cowboy Coffee, the Lovely Bar and the Easy Bar. The bars were understood to be all Thai-expat owned.

The land belongs to a family that also runs a large resort nearby, Phuketwan was told.

At least one of the bars has been operating for more than nine years and the operators would have some claim to the land if they reached 10 years, a reporter heard.

The eviction follows a court order dating back to 2008.

Phuketwan was told that execution of the eviction order was delayed until 2010 so the operators of the bars could make some extra money over Christmas-New Year.

Club Med Phuket, which opened in 1985, is reputed to be the resort that led to Thai Air starting daily flights to Phuket from Bangkok, beginning the tourism boom for the island.

An all-inclusive priced resort, the Club Med incorporates many kinds of indoor and outdoor activities and even a small golf course on 25 hectares among tropical trees and tidy gardens of bougainvillea, hibiscus and frangipanis.

The resort, virtually the only one in the middle of Kata beach, has 305 rooms and remains extremely popular.