CityNews – On 26th November the Department of Provincial Administration came to Chiang Mai to check hotels and services apartments for licences, finding many businesses operating without up to date licences.
Ronarong Thipsiri, the Director of the Inspector Supervision and Inspection Division said that he had come to Chiang Mai at the request of the Northern Hotels Association who had told him that there were numerous hotels and serviced apartments operating illegally in Chiang Mai.
Since, for national security, every hotel and accommodation service has to report its occupants daily to authorities in case of crime or other incidents, the lack of legitimacy and therefore lack of reporting could become dangerous not only to tourists but to the general population at large, he said. Should some serious incident occur, he continued, such as the Bangkok bombing, it would be hard to find the culprit. The Bangkok bomber, he pointed out, had avoided quality hotels to stay at illegally operated ones to avoid this exact reporting.
One hotel, Pangsawan Place, was found to be operating illegally and the owner has been remanded with bail. He faces a potential jail term of one year or a fine or no more than 20,000 baht. Or a fine of 10,000 per day should he continue to operate illegally.