Police crack down on fireworks following Patong Beach fire

The campaign to crack down on fireworks vendors at Patong Beach was confirmed on Saturday (July 1) when Patong Police announced the results of a beach inspection conducted at around 1.30am.

The raid party was led by Lt. Col Wirat Charee, Deputy Superintendent of Patong Police Station, while the raiding party included members of the “on-foot patrol” from Bangla Rd.

During the inspection, several fireworks were found near sunbeds that were stacked for the night on the beach. As no one claimed ownership, officers just seized the fireworks they had found.

The raid was conducted “to ensure the safety of tourists in the Patong Beach area and to build confidence in the police’s security and crime-prevention performance,” the official Facebook page of Patong Police Station explained.

The raid was repeated the following night. At around 10pm on July 1, officers returned to the beach and this time arrested a man for selling fireworks illegally on the beach. The man was taken to Patong Police Station for legal processing, and four fireworks were seized.

According to the report, the man was arrested “opposite Banana Walk,” precisely the location of the June 18 fire that resulted in a partial electricity outage in Patong for an undisclosed period.

The fire originated among the sunbeds that were stacked for the night near a building belonging to the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA), which serves as part of the electricity distribution system.

Police did not specify if the July 1 crackdown on beach fireworks in Patong, which included at least one inspection of sunbed stacks, was somehow linked to the June 18 fire.