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[RAZZELL]

yabs, on 2007-02-25 21:50:38, said:

but the only thing i would even consider doing in thailand is too work for an international company.
either that or a bit of english teaching to top up rental income.

In an ideal world everyone would like to be on a big, fat, ex-pat package with 3 months holiday...But the world ain't ideal and most people don't have that option...


RAZZ

[yabs]

in todays world EVERYONE has that option
it just takes some work to achieve

[sbk]

Lets keep it ON TOPIC without flaming or abuse please.

[Beachedwhale]

SamuiJens, on 2007-02-25 22:42:46, said:

sbk, on 2007-02-25 16:19:02, said:

Wouldn't you say that these same conditions exist everywhere in Thailand where one would want to open a bar? Why single out Samui as a den of corruption?

My understanding, at least from those in the know here on Koh P, is if you are running a bar without girls you won't be hit up for the monthly payment. If you are running anything remotely dodgy, then expect to pay.

No girls (prostitutes) working the bars I'm talking about, nor any dodgy things except live music in 2 of them. But agree, happens in other Thai tourist places, BUT, does that make it alright???

I have had a bar here for a few years and have never paid the police off and never even been approached - other than giving them a coffee one time when they came in to talk about a fight that happened between some customers which resulted in some damage to my place. They did ask me to include a slice / commission in the bill that I presented to the customer for the damage - to cover their services in getting him to pay up (but paying commission in Thailand is extremely common and I would suggest you latch on to it as an early way to make some extra cash as well)

The girl issue could be a reason and also live music could be a reason - as you are supposed to get a license for live music and that license is only allowed to be issued in certain areas - such as Chaweng and Bophut (not sure of the exact boundaries). Outside these areas you can only get a license for a PA. ... plus some people utilise musicians without work permits, which also could incur some fines ( I would recommend never doing this as it is potentially something to get you jail time, or even kicked out of the country)

Also, I believe that too many people are quick to bring out the wallet when it is not necessary. If I went up to a stranger and was asking him questions about his license and things just to see if he was legitimate and he pulls out his wallet to offer me some cash - would I take it? (probably yes.). My view is do not pay anyone unless you have exhausted all discussions - certainly do not pay any "instant fines" as there is no record of it and they will be back next month to collect more. The people you need to pay promptly are your staff and suppliers, because if you get on the wrong side of them, that is when trouble starts.

[StickKettleOn]

Re: Beachedwale's post; CCC, I hope this clears it up for you once and for all. If anyone ever suggests that police and mafia need to be greased in running a Samui bar, they are ill informed.

Police may be paid off to alow venues to play live music, remain open late after hours, etc etc etc. Jens may (or may not, i dont know) be aware of three bars that have to pay small backhanders simmilar to this. Pretty standard stuff, if thats the case, and nothing for a new bar owner to worry about.

My question to Jens, in good faith, would be this; these bars that you mention... Are they paying small backhanders so the police turn a blind eye to something, or is it a case of police/mafia making threats and stitching them up for money? I suspect the bars you mention are just paying simple backhanders in order to get away with certain things?

Slighlty off topic - but i have heard a few times over the years, that Ko Tao is quite the opposite from Samui - a couple of small time mafia bullies causing problems with bar and restraunt owners, demanding money with menace. I remember hearing of a few pretty shity incidents involving inocent bar owners over there. Can anyone confirm if this is true of Ko Tao?

[yabs]

Ok well sounds like Samui is an anomoly in Thailand where bribes and kickbacks don't need to be paid.
Strange as phuket, pattaya, bangkok its standrad procedure
i still wouldn't recommend it though
mugs game in my opinion and it all helps ruin the places we like.
usual story is this
person goes to thailand falls in love with it, wants to stay and only thing he/she can think of is to open a bar.
never owned one before but who cares. Before you know it 1000s more falang start doing the same thing
and a new Pattaya or Chaweng is born and all because some selfish and unoriginal people can't be bothered
to go home.
I on the other hand work like a dog for 6 months so i can relax in paradise for the other 6 months only to find
a load of falang have turned my paradise into costa del sol type resort with a load of cr*ppy bars
sad but true
However Op sounds different, sounds like he knows the business so his bar may actually be quite good with some good music. My advice mate is to keep the bar rustic and not commercial ie not a concrete and flashy sign monstrosity, but play some decent dance/chill out music in a rustic/tropical ambience and then I think yoiu may find your niche.

[womble]

yabs, on 2007-02-26 14:17:23, said:

Ok well sounds like Samui is an anomoly in Thailand where bribes and kickbacks don't need to be paid.
Strange as phuket, pattaya, bangkok its standrad procedure
i still wouldn't recommend it though
mugs game in my opinion and it all helps ruin the places we like.
usual story is this
person goes to thailand falls in love with it, wants to stay and only thing he/she can think of is to open a bar.
never owned one before but who cares. Before you know it 1000s more falang start doing the same thing
and a new Pattaya or Chaweng is born and all because some selfish and unoriginal people can't be bothered
to go home.
I on the other hand work like a dog for 6 months so i can relax in paradise for the other 6 months only to find
a load of falang have turned my paradise into costa del sol type resort with a load of cr*ppy bars
sad but true
However Op sounds different, sounds like he knows the business so his bar may actually be quite good with some good music. My advice mate is to keep the bar rustic and not commercial ie not a concrete and flashy sign monstrosity, but play some decent dance/chill out music in a rustic/tropical ambience and then I think yoiu may find your niche.

Why would anyone want your advise, you know absolutley nothing of use whatsoever to anyone wishing to run a bar. Your previous posts have said quite strongly that owning a bar is a mugs game, suddenly now your dishing out advise. And your so called niche of a rustic ambient chill out bar is far from niche, infact it's quite possibly one of the most common types of bars here.

Phuket and Bangkok are no different to Samui, you do not have to pay mafia or police there eigher. All over Thailand you only pay police if you want them to ignore certain illegal acts you are commiting, you do not need to pay them if you operate totally within the law.

Lots of bars do pay police to stay open late or have musicians play without work permits I have never heard of anyone ever paying mafia though.

[sbk]

Lets try to keep this ON TOPIC with INFORMED OPINIONS please

[StickKettleOn]

yabs, on 2007-02-26 14:17:23, said:

Ok well sounds like Samui is an anomoly in Thailand where bribes and kickbacks don't need to be paid.
Glad we agree.

Strange as phuket, pattaya, bangkok its standrad procedure
It is not standard procedure, but it is common in certain bar types.

i still wouldn't recommend it though
I would. Its a fantastic laugh - the whole concept is a little adventure and can be good fun. Getting it right will return a modest living and you can always sell the place when you tire of it. Its not quite as simple as that, but if you have an ounce of inteligence, it should be.

mugs game in my opinion and it all helps ruin the places we like.
Some may say a mugs game is teaching (i recal you suggesting teaching a few posts back?). I would advise against teaching but i wouldnt call it a mugs game as that would not be nice to the guys who are doing it. Teaching to me is a low paid job with little fun and little future, especialy in the current climate. Running a bar can be good fun, you are completley your own boss.

As for 'ruining the places we like'.... let me put this to you; I will talk about 'chavs' as you have brought this up a few times. Take a look around at the bars in any tourist haunt. You will notice that most of the dickheads making complete twats of themselves are in the Thai owned girly bars. Jumping up on the bar, dancing on the pole, picking the birds up and spinning them around, puking in the corner etc etc. Now, for me, this doesnt bother me too much. I dont judge. Its not my business. However, rarley will you see guys like this in the ferang owned bars. Walk in to any ferang owned bar on Ko Samui and i would say at least 90% of the time you will find a group of ferangs, many of them ex-pats or long term tourists, just sitting around the bar having a few beers and a chat, playing pool, having a laugh and generaly not pissing anyone off. I just paused to think of several ferang owned bars in ko samui, and i pictured that exact scene.

I will mention one bar as the bar owner has posted on this thread. The PFC. Bloody big bar right on Soi Regea. Just full of blokes (sometimes whole fammilies) talking, drinking, chatting, playing pool, reading the paper etc etc. How could a bar like this, and many others simmilar, 'ruin' a place? (I dont know the name of Beachedwale's bar, but i bet it is not too disimmilar.) Many of the Thai owned bars surrounding this bar are full of the chavs that you mention.... but rarely will you see them in ferang owned bars; the set up of most of the ferang owned bars does not apeal to the chav demographic that you talk about. They want loud bars full of birds playing techno and a few games of connect 4. Ferang owned bars, rarely, are like this. The truth is that ferang bar owners come to areas of LOS that already have an established nightlife. A few more bars catering for long term tourists and ex pats if anything, help improve the area. I completley disagree that ferangs setting up bars in already long established tourist areas are a bad thing.

usual story is this
person goes to thailand falls in love with it, wants to stay and only thing he/she can think of is to open a bar.
That is because there are not too many choices. Restraunt game?... Big gamble, tough to get right. Hotel business?.... Very, very expensive, requires tons of capital and experience. Internet cafe?.... Low revenues. Hardly enough to live. Scuba diving?.... massive competetion. Running a bar?.... Easy to set up, low capital, no rocket science involved, you can sell up when you have had enough.

never owned one before but who cares.
No one does care. And why should they? Setting a bar up in your home country with zero experience would be very hard. In LOS?.... Take over an established bar, use your imagination in renovation, fill a fridge full of beer and employ staff who know how to make cocktails. No experience required. You will make many mistakes along the way, but in just 3 months you will be on top of it all.

Before you know it 1000s more falang start doing the same thing
and a new Pattaya or Chaweng is born
Possibly one of the most over the top exagerations I have heard, ever. And anyway, as i said, ferang bar owners set up shop in areas already established, such as Chaweng and Pattaya.

and all because some selfish and unoriginal people can't be bothered
to go home.
Thats not very nice now is it? Who are you to judge the paths people take? I would not blame anyone for wishing to stay in the tropics. Why on earth would you cast a negative light on anyone who does not want to go home? If they get it wrong and it fails, thats there lookout. But please do not judge people for wishing to 'have a go' and improve the quality of there life.

I on the other hand work like a dog for 6 months so i can relax in paradise for the other 6 months
Good for you. Seriously, good for you. Thats is also another option to consider, 6 on 6 off. Nothing wrong with that and many do so.

only to find
a load of falang have turned my paradise into costa del sol type resort with a load of cr*ppy bars
Again, read my response above. Tourist areas are established by the Thais. Another exageration.

My advice mate is to keep the bar rustic and not commercial ie not a concrete and flashy sign monstrosity, but play some decent dance/chill out music in a rustic/tropical ambience and then I think yoiu may find your niche.
In my opinion, this is not very sound advice. A niche venue playing chill out music will not produce many punters. Been tried many times. Always fails. You have to target the core demographic, and the chill out ambient folk are not it. Build a nice looking pob, find cheery service staff, throw in a nice pool table, encourage the locals to drink there and hope that you get a couple of tourists stroll in and you should be ok.

Yabs - i hope it does not seem that i am picking an argument with you. I can assure you I am not. I have made a big effort to try and agree with at least some of your points but i just cant. Your thoughts and logic seem so wrong, unqualified and ill percieved. I just cant help but disagree with you on so many levels mate. Again, im not looking for another argument here, so shall we just leave it that we both disagree? Its obvious we both have different views so best not to go around in circles and create another 20 page thread.

Cheers

SKO.

[yabs]

I agree with you to a certain extent but most establishments are mostly half owned by falang
not all but a good percentage. Certainly in a lot of areas i used to like the thai rustc places
ie restaurants serving good thai food etc all thai owned and other rustic non girlie bar bars all thai owned
have then been taken down to make way for a far more commercial concrete neon sign establishment
which is almost always owned by a falang in tow as thais down't normally have the money for these big flashy places
so forgive me if i'm against Falang buying up places. Koh Chang, Phuket Koh lanta and in some places Samui have all been victim to this. Of course you get the odd foreigner with good taste who makes a bar that doesn't look out of keeping with the thai tropical vibe but usually it goes all too commercial as said falang gets greedy and just sees
his new life in the tropics as a way to get "rich" rather than just a way to have a nice life in the sun.
there is a phrase that tourism destroys what it sets out to seek but maybe I am going off on a tangent and away from the subject

[SamuiJens]

To the OP go ahead and open a bar on Samui, there sure is a BIG need for more.
PS. Go to the samuiexpress.net in the arcives on the life (problems) of Samui. You have $$$ I hope.
Best of luck!

[StickKettleOn]

I think Jens is trying to say that the market is exhuasted with no need for more bars, and there are plenty of sob stories on samuiexpress.

True in some ways.

There are sob stories. But then again, what do you expect if you create the following;

1) land on Ko Samui and within a week buy the first bar you see.
2) Said bar is opposite Central Samui resort, yet you throw in a couple of neon red lights, employ a couple of dozen Isarn munchkins and play 'Im a Barbie Girl' full blast
3) Name the bar 'Pussy Gallore', fly an England flag above the bar with your home city wrote across the front and advertise on a huge chalk board 'cheap piss nice birds'
4) Marry the bar girl you bar fined on day 3, and place the bar in her name
5) Develop a tenadency to cane the hel_l out of Chang, starting as early as 1pm and finishing at 3am.
6) Develop a tenadency to cane the hel_l out of Chang, starting as early as 10am and finishing at 5am.
7) Develop a tenadency to cane the hel_l out of Chang 24/7, with a couple hours sleep every few days.
8) Loose the plot. Abuse and fall out with any ex-pats/long termers who are daft enough to come in your bar. You realise that out of all these years not so much as looking at someone the wrong way, you posses a great right hook. Use it at every given chance.
9) 'Hansum Man' arives in bar, sweeps your Mrs of her feet, she kicks you out of bar, sells the bar to a guy who landed one week agao, and moves to Sweeden with new boyfriend.
10) Write to samuiexpress.net chastising Samui as a horrible place to do business and complain about how you came to Samui, set up a bar, lost a bar and are now broke.

Ok so I am taking the piss a little.... but believe it or not CCC, this is often the case.

I stand by my previous comments;

Spend 6 months on the island - get to know the place, and get palsy with the local ex-pats/long term tourists. Set up a bar in an area with a nice ballance of ex-pats and tourists, spend serious thought on renovation and making the bar look nice, play decent music, employ cheery girls purley as service staff, decent pool table, joing the pool league, show major sporting events and do not, under any circumstances, spend 12 hours a day on the piss. Given these rules, you have a far greater chance of making it work.

Just my 2 satangs worth.... I am no expert (not compared to most bar owners on Samui) but i know a little and anyway, most of it is down to common sense.

Good luck.

[SamuiJens]

Ohh, but you are living proof of the need for bars!Please don't twist my words. and thank you for not flaming my good name! I have No more to say on said topic, are you happy SKO?

[koheesti]

StickKettleOn, on 2007-02-26 19:12:43, said:

Spend 6 months on the island - get to know the place, and get palsy with the local ex-pats/long term tourists. Set up a bar in an area with a nice ballance of ex-pats and tourists, spend serious thought on renovation and making the bar look nice, play decent music, employ cheery girls purley as service staff, decent pool table, joing the pool league, show major sporting events and do not, under any circumstances, spend 12 hours a day on the piss. Given these rules, you have a far greater chance of making it work.

That's sound advice which would be valid just about anywhere.

[StickKettleOn]

Why am i living proof of the need for bars? Please explain so we can all understand. I thought my comments were sound. If you disagree, please explain in a way that we can all digest. I find your posts a little confusing sometimes.

Seriously, i ask you to explain why i am the living proof for more bars.

I didnt twist your words.

If you have no more to say on the subject, thats up to you. Do you have anything else to offer CCC as advice, apart from 'too many bars on Samui allready?', or is that it?

I await your explenation. Thank you.

[SamuiJens]

I agree with your post, that koheesi was kind to point out. In Bang Rak, there are IMO a lot of bars as in Lamai and Chaweng!

[yabs]

seeinmg as the post "HAS SAMUI gone to the dogs" has closed i can';t post this here
But Kettle please read
this is very interesting indeed
It also have relevance to my mafia comments and why running a business here may be dangerous

http://habby.net/ent...s/all-fools.txt

[StickKettleOn]

Sorry Jens, if i read your post wrongly. Cheers.

[RAZZELL]

StickKettleOn, on 2007-02-26 20:26:24, said:

Sorry Jens, if i read your post wrongly. Cheers.

SKO...I'm with you...some people see the glass half-empty...others...half full

Yabs...how many times have you been to Samui?


RAZZ

[yabs]

3 times
why?
I could see how years ago before Burger king got there etc and it was discovered by the hordes it would have been really something special but i wouldn't go back now

[womble]

yabs, on 2007-02-26 20:25:52, said:

seeinmg as the post "HAS SAMUI gone to the dogs" has closed i can';t post this here
But Kettle please read
this is very interesting indeed
It also have relevance to my mafia comments and why running a business here may be dangerous

http://habby.net/ent...s/all-fools.txt

There is little truth in that article, it reads like a tabloid newspaper article.

So you've read that and decided you now know exactly how Samui works.

Well done.

[StickKettleOn]

Womble - have to agree with you.

Sorry Yabs... Seriously, im at the point now where I am specificly looking for things to agree with you on. But I cant. As Womble says, the way in which the author has wrote this just stinks of a negative, single thinking. When i read stuff like this, I am always left with the impresion that it is the result of a person who had a bad holiday.

It gets worse though.

The footie hooligan story; reads like an ameteur novelist. Check it out.... http://habby.net/ent...cs/hooligan.txt

[RAZZELL]

yabs, on 2007-02-26 21:50:33, said:

3 times
why?I could see how years ago before Burger king got there etc and it was discovered by the hordes it would have been really something special but i wouldn't go back now

Don't be so elitist... There must be a reason why it's become popular?

Although I do agree with you (a little), Burger King, McDonalds and KFC aren't exactly my idea of a tropical paradise either

Unfortunately, it's the price of progess, and it's impossible to get the balance right between too much and not enough development..

Anyway, this thread is about opening a bar...

Not about the state of Koh Samui...That thread was worn out a longtime ago...


RAZZ

[RAZZELL]

For the OP:

http://www.thaivisa....howtopic=108462


RAZZ

[sbk]

yabs, on 2007-02-26 20:25:52, said:

seeinmg as the post "HAS SAMUI gone to the dogs" has closed i can';t post this here
But Kettle please read
this is very interesting indeed
It also have relevance to my mafia comments and why running a business here may be dangerous

http://habby.net/ent...s/all-fools.txt

This is completely off topic and has no relevance to the OP's request. Please try to stay within some parameters of the general discussion please.