The Criminal Court for the first time in Thai history fined a restaurant manager and another individual nearly half a million baht for showing images of alcoholic drinks in their restaurant menus.
According to ASTV Manager Online, an individual with the Facebook username ‘Ozawa Curry’, the managing director of KACHA*KACHA Restaurant at ASIATIQUE, an open-air mall in Bangkok, posted on his Facebook profile that Bangkok’s Criminal Court on 24 March 2015 fined him and another individual a total of 460,000 baht (14,189 USD) for violating the 2008 Alcoholic Beverage Control Act.
The court fined the two 1,000 baht a day from 30 July 2014 to 6 March 2015 for breaking the 2008 Alcoholic Beverage Control Act with an additional fine of 10,000 baht each.
The two defendants, however, are in the process of appealing the ruling.
The court said that the two defendants violated Articles 32 and 43 of the 2008 Alcoholic Beverage Control Act.
Article 32 of the 2008 Alcoholic Beverage Control Act states that no person shall advertise or display, directly or indirectly, the names or trademarks of alcoholic beverages in a manner showing the properties thereof or inducing others to drink, while Article 43 sets a penalty of a year in prison or a fine of no more than 500,000 Baht (about 15,000 USD) or both for those who violate Article 32.
According to the restaurant managing director, four to five police officers came to inspect the restaurant on 30 December 2014, demanding the see the license to sell alcoholic beverages and taking pictures of the restaurant’s menus.
Seven months after the inspection, the police summoned the restaurant staff and told them that they had to pay a 50,000 baht fine (about 1,540 USD) to the Alcohol Control Committee and submitted the case file of the charges to the prosecutor’s office.
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