Thailand’s maddening alcohol laws were set for a little loosening yesterday with a bill that first entered parliament in discussion on May 29, 2020 set to revise the excise act on alcohol. But the bill was stalled because, yet again, Thailand’s MPs decided they’d rather work from home. 

Only 234 members showed, failing to reach the quorum of 238 of the 475 MPs. More than half the entire legislative body decided to call in sick, the 15th time this has happened since 2019, according to Saksith Saiyasombut of Channel News Asia. When someone was heard saying the Parliament was “down again”, a number of MPs laughed. 

The crusade against Thailand’s monopoly-centric alcohol laws has been spearheaded by Taopiphop "Tao" Limjittrakorn, a Move Forward Party candidate who was arrested in 2017 for making craft beer. He was fined 5,000 baht and given a suspended sentence of one year. Five years later and the brewer is an MP who has taken on the alcohol laws that entrepreneurs argue needlessly stifle a booming industry. 

Beyond monopolistic control, Thailand has a number of prohibition laws downloaded from a different century. Under Section 32 of the 2008 Alcoholic Beverage Control Act people can be fined hundreds of thousands of baht for posting pictures of bottles, encouraging others to drink, or posting alcohol brands. Meanwhile, the alcohol and hospitality industries have been some of the hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, suffering both a loss of tourists and fickle health laws that are quick to blame alcohol for viral ills. Similarly, benefiting the large domestic brands, the excise tax on imported can be in excess of 300%.

“The past two years have been devastating to our industry and the…ever-changing, last-minute laws always revolving around alcohol have left many with no jobs, no income and no support. We are really left to our own devices, waiting for the next ban, which is only a political pawn in a big chess game we know nothing about,” says SB, a representative for a large imported alcohol distributor in Thailand with hundreds of brands. “We’re basically scapegoats.”

The new amendments to the excise act would permit small enterprises to produce alcohol. The delay will likely see the bill taken up next week—assuming the MPs aren’t hungover on Chang again.