Bar Fines - A necessary evil?

[rusty nail]

Bar fines...

Well, the bar has to make money, right?

Or that's how the logic goes as we (and they) try to rationalize this odd fine of asking one of the staff to leave work early so we can dip our soldiers in their soft boiled eggs!

Also - what do you know about how many bar fines the workers have to make each month just to keep their jobs?

And what's this about a 'lifetime bar fine' of 10,000 baht and what exactly does that mean?

Also - how do they vary from bar to bar - city to city - and country to country?

Bar fines... They ain't going anywhere so how do YOU cope with them?

Tell us your stories and lend us newbies some of your wisdom!

[f0xxee]

At 600B a bar fine it works out cheaper in the long run than lurve...

As the great not quite late Charlie Sheen said, "I dont pay them for sex, I pay them to leave". Quite right too.

[Squid55]

It's all about the value chain. If no bar fine the money has to flow in another way: more expensive drinks, bigger payments for the STs and LTs.

It's like low cost airlines: you pay for each element of the service. On second thoughts, let's no go there: choose your own LB 100Bt, three sucks 30Bt, no bringing your own KY etc etc...........

[Tomcat]

(rusty nail @ May 31 2011,14:49) Also - how do they vary from bar to bar - city to city - and country to country?

In London an escort bar , if you can still find one that the Police havent closed down, will charge you around £100 for a bottle of cheapo champagne as the bar fine. In Hong Kong the bar fine used to be crazy , like 300-500 USD, no wonder i dont bother with Suzy Wong any more. Also Taiwan is heavy as well and you get clobberd badly

Thailand is cheap as chips and i have no qualms. 600 Baht is sweet FA in the grand scheme of things in the PfP world

Its like hiring a Ferrari... you pay the hire fee and how much petrol you stick in it is up to you. They have overheads which must be paid by someone

[daveduke007]

I meant to vote I dont mind but pressed the wrong option  

Saying that, during the current climate, exchange rates , Hotel rates, barfines price, beer prices and ladydrinks etc etc it would cause me to stay away from Bangkok nowadays and head straight for the 2 for the price 1 option in Pattaya

[strocube]

I'm with Tomcat, 600 is a bargain when you consider what you would pay for a girl in farangland. For me, here in the land of fat and stupid , it figures out to about $20.00. That's what you would pay for lunch at a semi-decent restaurant.

[jimbo34]

I wish all customers were as willing to pay 400Bt as you good gentlemen are about 600 ! It still amazes me that there are guys out there prepared to try all sorts of tricks to avoid our barfine.

That said, it doesn't happen all that often,.But in High Season i can spot 'em almost every night.

Most things are commission-orientated in Thailand, and bars operate the same way, with barfine quotas, and in many cases ladydrink quotas too. We don't operate a ladydrink quota as it leads to too much pushiness, and becomes annoying for the customer. Although it must be said, i'm far more interested in our ladydrink numbers, as its where my profit lies! But both items are critical for a bar's survival.

It'll be interesting to get someone on here who is prepared to state "I don't pay barfines", and what reasons he gives.

[pacman]

I resented barfines deeply when, after an absence of a few years, I returned to LOS to discover every place expected this extra payment. And joiner fees! Damn, who thought them up?

A lot changed for me since then. I went from being an employee to being an employer. I could see the business plan from the other side of the fence as it were.

Now I just accept them. That doesn't mean I like them, when business was good & I could see the bar was taking tens of 1000's a night, another 400 on top of my bill was as welcome as a parking ticket.

Today I have written about the need to support our favourite bars because it is so obvious that many of them are hanging on in the hope of things recovering.

When the scene does recover, it's likely to be with Indian, Chinese & Russian tourists, none of whom will ever make up the shortfall of the hard drinking farang from the UK, US & Australia markets. Plus the Kiwis, Canucks, Irish, etc.

While I am indulging myself in this little exercise in omphaloskepsis, I don't like what I see on the horizon.

There has been much criticism directed at Pook's two bars for wanting to charge an all-inclusive barfine & service fee for the girl. It seems it is a bit of a bluff, if challenged they back down, but how many newbies would call them on it?

And if the word spreads that this works, rest assured that others will want to do it also. Only Thai owned bars of course, after all, prostitution is still illegal in LOS.

And the notion that Pook & others are just wanting to save the girl from being exploited & are getting her the proper payment is simply nonsense. From 2000 baht, the girl will be lucky to receive 500.

[Torurot]

I wonder if all those that DON'T object to paying "barfines" come from countries with strong currencies where they get MANY Bhat for their Euro/Pound/Dollar. For those lucky people "it is not so much", but compare Apples with Apples, you cannot compare Thailand to London/New York/Tokyo etc.

What would be interesting is the % bar fines contribute to the bottom line vs beer/drink sales.

[rxpharm]

I didn't mind paying barfines of 500-600 Baht. For the visitor coming to LOS only for a short visit - a few weeks, it is a much more efficient way to meet LBs rather than searching on dating sites, or trolling around malls, SkyTrain, etc for lbs.

Really the bars make it easy for someone to meet lbs, there are few other places where you can look over close to a hundred lbs (on a busy night) to make a selection as your evening companion. Keeping the bars in business is in the interest of the short visit punters.

However, I can see this being a drawback for the long term ex-pat or those on a several month stay. It would seem that these punters are small in number however.

[jimbo34]

(Torurot @ Jun. 01 2011,07:22) I wonder if all those that DON'T object to paying "barfines" come from countries with strong currencies where they get MANY Bhat for their Euro/Pound/Dollar.  For those lucky people "it is not so much",  but compare Apples with Apples, you cannot compare Thailand to London/New York/Tokyo etc.  

What would be interesting is the % bar fines contribute to the bottom line vs beer/drink sales.

I looked at a few months recently, and found that LDs & BFs are approximately 35% - 40% of the revenue of the bar.

Absolutely critical, especially as the profit on them is so high. In High Season, they provide all of the bottom line really, providing a nice surplus to pay for unusual expenses eg repairs, and provision for surviving Low Season, etc.

In Low Season , when drinkers are less plentiful, the margins allow the bar to at least tick over without loss.

Without them, the bars would die in a very short space of time unless drink prices were to rise to compensate.

[peterNYC]

I don't mind paying a BF at all...600 is nothing...

[TripleZ]

I just accept them - to my mind, anyone who has a philosophical objection to bar fines can find plenty of freelancers hanging around or alternatively can wait until the bars shut down and try to come to an arrangement with a bar girl as she's leaving the bar. Once you've hooked up with a bar girl, if you treat them right most are very willing to give you their mobile number so that if you want to see them, you can do so without even going back to the bar.

I would probably be a lot less tolerant if the bars had a monopoly on P4P fun with LBs...particularly because if that was the case, the barfine would likely be a hell of a lot more than 600THB!

[rusty nail]

(pacman @ Jun. 01 2011,07:21) While I am indulging myself in this little exercise in omphaloskepsis...

Had to look that one up!

[harley quinn]

Over here in we don't really have barfines as a combination of Police action and cheaper overheads by advertising the girls or LBs on the web have taken over.

The choice seems simple: come to London and pay £150 for an hour if you are lucky (?) with a creature that thinks "hygiene" is an American greeting (copyright Des o'Connor 1972). Pay £200 for one of the classy ones or ...

fly off to the sun, sip a cold beer and pay £10 to take a golden goddess off for the night. OK you also pay the lady but lets face it you at least get to agree a price rather than the take it or leave it attitude over here.

I feel this is what they call a "no brainer" and if you want some evidence of that here it is (nicked from the C&D thread - sorry Jimbo)