The news from Japan sucks, but if you want to get away from the flow of bad news, bring your lover to this place. You'll have a super time.From the files of Shocked! I tell you Shocked! comes this tale of inspection rejection: yes, only 1 in 45 bars passed a surprise safety inspection. Frankly I'm surprised the number of passing bars was so high.
Yes, the government was unaware that 11 establishments had closed [commenter below says was only temporary -MT], and thought 40 bars and nightclubs were just restaurants. But there's no corruption in the inspectorate, of course.Initially, a total of 56 establishments were targeted for inspection, but 11 were not operating at the time of the inspections, so only 45 inspections could be carried out, the statement said.
As many as 40 establishments failed the inspections because they were officially registered as “category G” establishments — restaurants or other food and beverage establishments with floor space of less than 300m2 — but were actually bars, KTVs and nightclubs.
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7 comments:
Why "your lover"?
You would think that the poison dwarf would have taken a lesson from predecessor Lin Bo-rung... deadly restaurant fires can end your career. Anyone else remember the rash of clamp-downs and closings on bars that followed the Wellcome fire? First they went after bars, when the fire was in an actual restaurant. Second, this blitz went on for a short time and then it was business as usual. Well, it's more important to be seen to be doing 'something' than actually do anything useful. It reminds me of the show of security that happened after that famous shooting. When are the citizens going to realize that Hu is nothing but a stuffed shirt and needs to go?
"Yes, the government was unaware that 11 establishments had closed, which appears to indicate that no one had bothered to inspect them in a while..."
Geez. Your Chinese is worse than I thought. Read the Chinese version when you try to comment on a Taiwanese news. The 11 bars were not closed because they were out of business. 是暫時歇業 避避風頭. Taiwan is NOT a police state where government can keep surveillance of every single bar every single night. OK.
Yes, when I said "the bars hadn't been inspected in a while" I meant Taiwan should be a police state in which bars are watched every day. There's no need to be stupid.
In the owners of said establishments defense, I'd say that most inspection criteria is so messed up and contradictory to begin with that even if the owners wanted to be up to code, it would be impossible in some manner to do so legally.
I would also not call them corrupt so much as just plain hopelessly incompetent. It's a blue city so what are you going to do. They're just going to parade these inspections out to show something was done and then it all goes back to normal. The 11 that were temporarily closed were probably warned ahead of time. I'm sure they'll be reopened in a month or 2.
Is there any sort of transparency with this where the inspectors list publicly what is wrong so later if someone sees the same problem they can report it? It costs nothing to list this stuff on the internet with pics. This would be a great thing for the DPP to get out in front of where they clean up the regulations and work with the owners while listing everything publicly. Unfortunately, it will be demagogued.
Yes, I agree Okami, about the politicization. Good comment.
Okami, Taichung has been through this before with Lin Bo-rung at the helm, so the bar industry knows what to expect. Bars are going to be empty for a week or two since there will be raids galore while the show goes on. No-one wants to go party while the bad-vibe squad is out a-raidin' so the smart bar owner closes down for a few weeks until the 'inspections' are over. If you're not open you don't get 'inspected', fined or hassled. Everyone knows it will be business as usual in a few weeks. Someone with responsibility for building inspections will have to step down and that will be it until the next fire.
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