MANOP THIP-OSOD and APIRADEE TREERUTKUARKUL
3 January 2009
Bangkok Post
Owner, others facing charges of flouting law
Owner Wisuk Setsawat and others responsible for the Santika pub, which caught fire on Thursday causing the loss of 59 lives, will face legal action for admitting underage revellers, letting its insurance lapse and not having an operating licence.
Deputy national police chief Pol Gen Jongrak Chuthanont said the owner of Santika on Ekamai road applied for an operating licence in 2004, but the request was rejected because construction was unfinished at the time.
The owner then asked the Administrative Court to temporarily approve the operation, which it did.
Deputy city clerk Wanwilai Phromlakhano said the pub building received a construction permit when it was built in 2003.
However, approval of the operating licence rested with police, who were in dispute with the owner of the building. Ms Wanwilai did not elaborate.
Pol Maj-Gen Chokechai Deeprasertwit, commander of the Metropolitan Police Bureau's Division 5, said Santika was not insured. Its insurance coverage expired four months ago and was not extended as the pub lease contract was about to expire.
As the insurance had expired, police have ruled out the possibility of arson.
However, experts have yet to conclude whether the fire started by accident, Pol Maj-Gen Chokechai said.
Police were waiting for Santika pub owner Wisuk Setsawat to show up for questioning.
Pol Maj-Gen Chokechai said he did not know when Mr Wisuk would turn up and added that the pub owner suffered a respiratory problem in the fire.
Mr Wisuk was hospitalised but police said his whereabouts were not immediately known.Police will call Chris Pongpithaya, the owner of the pub building, and Suriya Ritrabue, the pub manager, for interrogation instead.
Worapot Inthulak, chief of the Watthana district office, said an early investigation attributed the fire to fireworks set off inside the building during the Santika's farewell party that night.
He said the fireworks set ablaze materials inside the building.
The fire killed 59 people and injured at least 243. Twenty-one bodies, 14 of which had been taken to Chulalongkorn hospital, still could not be identified.
Nantana Sitthisak, head of Chulalongkorn hospital's forensics department, said six of the 14 bodies were burned beyond recognition.
An autopsy report shows all were Asian women.
Another two days to a week would be needed to complete the body identification process, she said.
A body identification centre has been set up at the Thong Lor police station.
Pol Lt-Gen Danai Wongthai, chief of the Police Forensic Science Department, said identification would have to rely on DNA tests.
Some of the dead's relatives filed complaints yesterday.
Yai Waythita from Pattani said her younger brother who died in the Santika fire always carried his ID card and 10,000 baht in cash with him, but both were missing.
Patthida Phosri, who lost her husband Arthithep, said she had first seen the body of her husband wearing a gold necklace weighing five-baht and two gold-framed amulets, but the valuables later disappeared.
Another Bangkok bar caught fire early yesterday, but there were no casualties.
The four-storey Rawhide bar on Soi Cowboy off Sukhumvit Soi 23 caught fire after hours. A faulty electric connection to decorations on a Christmas tree was blamed.
The mezzanine floor and ceiling tiles on the first floor were damaged but no one was injured because the fire happened after the pub had closed.
Like the Santika, the Rawhide bar had been full of customers on New Year's Eve, but was very quiet in the early hours of yesterday.
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The Administrative Court warned a senior police officer yesterday that his comment suggesting the court should be blamed for the Santika Pub disaster is likely to be deemed contempt of court.
Suchat Weroj, secretary-general of the Administrative Court's Office, issued the warning in a statement released yesterday.
He said the Central Administrative Court in March 2007 ruled in favour of the pub's operators in a case they filed against the local police for refusing to grant them a permit to operate an entertainment place. He said the court ruling was based on the legal facts that the owners were qualified to operate a nightclub and the venue's location was not prohibited by law.
The court ruled that the police's order refusing the entertainment place to be operated was against the law, according to Suchat. He said the police in April 2007 appealed with the Supreme Administrative Court and a verdict has yet to be made.
In his two-page statement, Suchat said the lower court focused on the police's delay in granting a permit of operation as the issue of possible violations of the building law by the pub operators was not mentioned in the testimonies given to the court.
He said the court had nothing to do with the building-law violation, which was blamed for the high number of casualties. He said it was a matter for police and the city's civil engineering authorities.
"It is unlikely the Administrative Court will issue any order or verdict that goes against the law. To give news in a way that can lead to a perception that the Administrative Court is a cause for the disaster can be deemed contempt of court," Suchat said.
On Friday, deputy police commissioner-general Jongrak Juthanon said an investigation into the club's history had found that its application for a licence in December 2004 had been turned down by the city police on the grounds that the premises did not conform to standards. However, he added, the pub had opened anyway following an Administrative Court injunction pending a ruling.
In his statement, Suchat explained that the lower court granted the injunction in July 2004 on grounds that the pub operators met the legal qualifications to operate an entertainment venue and that police refusal to grant them a permit caused them to get arrested for operating without a permit.
He said, however, that the Supreme Administrative Court in October that year withdrew the injunction as it disagreed with the lower court's decision.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Investigators slam lack of safety equipment
The Santika pub, which became a deadly inferno in the first hour of Jan 1, was a deathtrap due to hazardous materials inside and a lack of safety equipment, an engineering expert says.
Pitchaya Chantranuwat, head of the building safety sub-committee of the Engineering Institute of Thailand, made the assessment after inspecting the debris of Santika on Soi Ekamai yesterday with crime scene investigators and public works officials from the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration.
Mr Pitchaya said the pub lacked basic equipment to deal with a fire, including emergency lamps, fire exit signs and sprinklers.
The three exits for its area of about 400 square metres were insufficient to deal with 400 guests, he said.
Had it had sufficient sprinklers, emergency lights and more prominent fire exit signs, revellers could have escaped and survived the fire, Mr Pitchaya said.
The main gate of the pub was 2.18 metres wide.
In case of fire, the door would be adequate for just 200 people to escape, he said.
Mr Pitchaya also said there were a large number of highly inflammable materials in the pub such as fibreglass, resin and plastic.
The pub's walls were lined with polystyrene.
When the material caught fire, it emitted toxic gases that caused victims to pass out, he added.
Vicharn Peawnim, a forensic doctor at Ramathibodi Hospital, said carbon monoxide, which was a toxic gas, was the main cause of deaths in the pub fire. The gas replaces oxygen in blood, so many victims died when their brains were deprived of oxygen, he said.
It would be easier to treat burnt skin than to treat people who inhaled toxic gases, the doctor said.
Arthi Krueawit, a surgeon at the same hospital, agreed toxic smoke was extremely dangerous.
In the first week after the blaze, the clogged alveoli of their contaminated lungs could swell up causing acute respiratory failure, he said.
Such victims should return to doctors and use respirators that will replace toxic substances in their lungs with oxygen, he suggested.
The Foundation for Consumers recommended a convenient way for victims of the Santika pub fire and their relatives to demand reasonable compensation.
Foundation secretary-general Saree Ongsomwang said under the Consumer Case Procedure Act effective last year, victims of the pub fire could be considered as consumers who had the right to demand reasonable compensation from the operators concerned.
She said the new act provides fast process of compensation demands and judges can raise compensation for victims and fine wrongdoers.
Representatives of White & Brothers, the company that operated Santika, received compensation requests from victims and their relatives at the Thong Lor police station yesterday.
According to Pongsak Poolcharoen, the company's lawyer, 31 shareholders of Santika raised two million baht from their own pockets to initially help victims.
The company will accept compensation demands until Friday. It received only about 50 demands yesterday, the lawyer said.
Among complainants, Thanakorn Duangsawat, 34, said the treatment in the first three days for his 25-year-old sister Anchitcha, whose body suffered 10% burns, had cost as much as 240,000 baht.
She had been released from an incentive care unit (ICU) at Bangkok Hospital on Sunday and would be admitted until tomorrow. He expects the bill to reach 300,000 baht.
The death toll from the Santika pub fire reached 64 as Japanese victim Keiichi Wada died on Sunday night. Of the 68 injured, 35 remained in ICUs yesterday.
Police Forensic Science Department chief Pol Maj-Gen Danaithorn Wongthai said evidence had been gathered including video clippings from the mobile phones of visitors at the pub.
Police are still waiting to finalise witness accounts. So far more than 100 witnesses have spoken to police.
Thong Lor police station chief Pol Col Suthin Sapphuang said police wanted to interrogate Suriya Ritrabue, managing director of White & Brothers, but his whereabouts were unknown. Police issued a summons for Mr Suriya and 12 other pub executives to come forward for questioning tomorrow.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Justice Ministry is investigating whether local police were bribed to allow the Santika pub to operate without a licence for so long.
Kittipong Kittayarak, permanent secretary for justice, said yesterday Justice Minister Pirapan Salirathavibhaga has set up a special committee to smooth the payment of reasonable compensation for the victims of the Jan 1 pub fire and to investigate if local police had accepted bribes from the Santika pub owner.
The panel will streamline procedures for the arrangement of compensation for the victims and relatives of the dead victims.
The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) and the Anti-Money Laundering Office will be asked to assist in the investigation.
Tharit Pengdit, secretary-general of the NACC, said officials would check if kickbacks had been paid to any officials to let Santika operate so smoothly for so long without a licence.
The panel also needs to find out if the building met the requirements of the building control law, said Mr Tharit, deputy head of the Justice Ministry special investigating committee.
It was earlier reported the owner of the Santika pub had sought an operating licence from police back in 2004, but it was refused.
Deputy national police chief Pol Gen Jongrak Chuthanont said the licence request was turned down because the building of the pub had not been completed at the time.
However, the Administrative Court stated later that police had delayed issuing the licence unfairly and the pub owner had the right to seek the licence even with just a blueprint of the building in hand.
City Clerk Pongsak Semsant said the investigation is also focusing on whether the structure of the Santika pub had been modified and more floors added illegally.
He admitted the task would be difficult because most of the evidence seems to have been destroyed.
The pub blaze left 64 people dead and 68 injured.
Special effects that included the shooting of confetti on the stage were initially suspected of being the cause of the fire, as this could have hit the sparklers held by customers.
Pol Col Kachornsak Pansakhon, deputy chief of Bangkok Police sub-division 5, said it had yet to be concluded whether this was the real cause.
The officer said Suriya Ritrabue, the 31-year-old managing director of White & Brothers (2003) Co, operator of the pub, had still not shown up for questioning.
Police have issued a second summons for him to turn up this Friday. If the request again goes unheeded, police will seek an arrest warrant for him, Pol Col Kachornsak said.
Det-udom Krairit, president of the Lawyers Council of Thailand, said yesterday his council would file lawsuits on behalf of those victims of the fire without financial resources or their relatives to seek the payment of compensation.
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