Seventy-seven people have tested positive for drugs during a raid on a Samut Sakhon pub operating on the site of a nightspot that was ordered closed for five years after a drug raid in 2018.
Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul led the raid that took place at 2.45am on Saturday at Tag Pub in the Omnoi area of Krathum Baen district in the province adjacent to Bangkok. More than 30 officials from the Department of Provincial Administration (DPA), territorial defence volunteers, local police and narcotics suppression officers took part.
More than 300 customers were found dancing to music and drinking when officials entered the pub.
Upon seeing the officials, many patrons ran, tossing drugs to the floor as they fled. Many were subsequently rounded up and taken to undergo urine tests. Seventy-seven people — 38 men and 39 women — tested positive for drug use.
Mr Anutin said the raid came after the DPA received complaints about noise and drug use at the pub, which was also open beyond legal operating hours.
Officials gather outside Tag Pub in the Omnoi area of Krathum Baen district in Samut Sakhon following Saturday’s raid. (Photo: DPA law enforcement operations centre)
The department sent undercover officers to the pub, and when hey verified the complaints, they sent a signal to the raid team, said the minister.
Authorities arrested the pub owner on charges of operating beyond permitted hours, staging promotional campaigns to increase sales of alcoholic drinks and allowing use of narcotics on the premises.
The minister has ordered the Samut Sakhon governor to issue an order to close the pub for five years, under a regulation issued in 2015 by the National Council for Peace and Order after the 2014 coup and still on the books.
The nightspot used to be called Nos Pub, which was ordered closed for five years after a raid in 2018 uncovered drug use, said Mr Anutin.
The building was later renovated and renamed Tag Pub.
A DPA investigation found that the pub was backed by certain influential figures. The department plans to ask a provincial committee to suppress influential figures to extend its investigation to find those behind the operation.