Bangkok Bar Is a Smashing Success

Insight on the News, Sept 24, 2001 by Stephen Goode

Some people will do it anyway, even without permission. But a bar in Bangkok, Thailand, is helping its clientele relieve tension in an unusual way. When end-of-day drinkers finish the drink they've been working on at Mingles Pub, they are allowed to smash their glasses against the wall with all the fury they can muster.

"Smashing glasses is something so good that people can't stop it," Sanjog Modgil told Reuters. Modgil is food-and-beverage manager at the Amari Atrium Hotel where the pub is located. "There are many bars in Thailand. We were trying to create a niche," Modgil explained. Now the practice is becoming personalized, according to a bartender at the pub. "During the smashing, some of them say, `This one is for my wife and this one is for my boss.'"

As many as 350 glasses are smashed on a good weekend. The pub requires only that the glasses be tossed into a designated area, for easy cleanup.

Modgil (taking some of the fun out of imagining what a wild night at Mingles might be like when things get really hot) claims that "the crowd is very disciplined." He calls it a quiet pleasure, explaining: "A lot of people are stressed out in Bangkok with traffic and stuff like that, so when you smash your glass, you hear something break, you say, Yes! Yes!"