UPDATING All Day, Every Day
ROWS of illegal buildings considered to have been erected inside Sirinath National Park at Phuket's Nai Yang beach were bulldozed this afternoon.
Original Report
PHUKET: At least two restaurants on Phuket beaches were demolished this morning and more demolitions are forecast for this afternoon, a government official said today.
Phuket Chief of the Marine 5 office, Phuripat Theerakulpisut, said a grader had destroyed the Tri Trang Restaurant and the Windsurf Restaurant, both on Tri Trang beach, south of Patong.
Authorities briefly placed an excavator on a Phuket beach further north near the Lotus restaurant at Laypang (north Bang Tao), hinting at potential action.
A top-level team led by the Army was on the move from Tri Trang to Patong to Bang Tao, Laypang and Nai Yang beaches.
At each beach, strong messages were delivered that illegal restaurants on public beaches must be removed.
The warning from Phuket's top Army officer, Major General Somchai Ponatong, came at Patong, where the managers of restaurants at Loma Park and the Patong Bay Garden Resort were warned.
At Laypang (Bang Tao north) beach, an excavator was on the sand near the Movenpick Resort Bangtao Beach Phuket. The Palm Beach Club sits on the shorefront opposite the resort.
Soon after the visit by the major general - with local Cherng Talay Mayor Ma-Ann Samran and Khun Phuripat - the excavator was moved. High tide was approaching.
Next to the beach club, protruding much further towards the sea, is the Lotus Restaurant, a large, solid construction that is frequently lapped by waves at high tide.
Along from the Lotus are an assortment of other restaurants, including Nirvana, previously known as the Som restaurant.
The two-storey diner and other buildings on the seaward side of a border-defining road are deemed by officials to be illegal.
On a survey of restaurants along the beachfront a few weeks ago, one restaurant owner told Phuketwan he would ''see whether the Army was serious'' before closing his business.
At that stage, new electrical wiring was being installed.
Four shorefront establishments at Nai Yang beach, where a previous director of the Sirinath National Park authorised an 800-metre diversion of the park's high tide border around some beachfront restaurants, were also due to be visited today.
At Kalim, north of Patong, authorities reportedly removed a cantilevered balcony and a walkway that covered an unsightly drain near the White Box Restaurant.
''If they want to expose the ratsh** and the trash in the canal, that's up to them,'' owner Roberto Ugolini said yesterday.
He has closed the restaurant while fighting an order to demolish the building to a single storey.
He says he has a land title and permission for the present building, except for an awning on the top level that he is prepared to remove.
Today's renewed action comes with many timber and thatch restaurants already removed from Phuket's west coast beaches following the military takeover of Thailand on May 22.
Many of the more substantial buildings at Surin and Laypang beaches especially remain intact. Accusations have been made recently that more influential owners have yet to be affected.
Beach vendors have been banned from some beaches and are likely to be banned from others. All sunbeds and umbrellas have already been removed.
Beach stalls at Hua Hin, a popular tourist destination south of Bangkok, were demolished and sunbeds removed yesterday.
However, critics of the military say that many of Hua Hin's famous stilt restaurants, erected over the beaches and extending out to sea, remain untouched so far.
Are we to believe that the local Or Bor Tors, or any members did not profit from encroachment? Or are we just to ignore it?
Posted by The Night Mare on August 14, 2014 12:47
Editor Comment:
If you have some evidence that beach encroachers were paying officials, take it to the military, TNM. If not, your guesswork serves no useful purpose.