Bob's Fashion: at the mercy of thugs and "influential people"?

One of the most common complaints we at WoWasis hear from people living near the intersection of Sukhumvit Soi 3 is the illegal proliferation of stalls selling the usual tourist “junk,” running from So 3 to roughly Soi 15. The stalls are on both sides of the sidewalk, making the sidewalk virtually unusable for foot traffic when corpulent and backpack-cladded tourists descend on the area to buy the same junk they can buy anywhere in Bangkok. As a result, pedestrians have taken to using the streets, slowing down vehicle traffic as well.

Of course, these sidewalk stalls are illegal. But, as was reported in the Bangkok Post of February 5, 2012, they thrive as a result of illegal payments made to Nana city inspectors, called tesakij, on the order of 500 baht per month. The police of Bangkok’s Metropolitan Police Bureau Division 5, who some critics have suggested are also involved in the scheme, claim they have no knowledge of the problem.

This illegal system has gotten ugly recently for a legitimate business called Bob’s Fashion, on Sukhumvit Soi 3. This company, which has been in business for 35 years, is in dispute with a stall owner occupying space in front of the shop, and has reportedly been threatened by a team of local thugs, allegedly being paid by the stall owners. Police have refused to intervene.

This incident has opened up a nasty can of worms, in the sense that it has exposed the process by which pedestrians essentially lose their rights to free passage along sidewalks. The fact that the stalls are illegal means nothing when all sorts of hands are in the till. We suspect that it will take a few individuals getting killed while using the street to walk to their destinations  before anything is done to fix this problem. Until then, sidewalks will be continually gummed up with new street stalls, influential people will be paid off, legitimate businesses will lose traffic, and navigating Bangkok’s sidewalks will become an increasing challenge for residents and visitors alike.