The tight economy even hits the world’s oldest entrepreneurs:
Tomorrow, Friday, around 6 AM, when the bartender announces last call at Fenwick, it really will be last call, as the bar will close for good, unless they win an appeal with the liquor licensing authority, which refused to renew their license due to “ongoing incidents.” This means they get shut down right at the beginning of the biggest bar weekend of the year.
Just last fall it looked like they would close down when the new landlord refused to renew their lease. But in a slumping market, they were able to change his mind on that. The liquor licensing authority doesn’t care about the local economy, nor do they care that Fenwick was playing a vital role in supporting the economies of Thailand, the Philippines, China, Russia and various countries in South America and Africa. “Antics at the disco have frequently been mentioned on Hong Kong-specific blogs and were often the basis of in-jokes among the expatriate community,” or so we are informed by Barclay Crawford of the SCMP. Antics. Right.
This is happening the same weekend as the Hong Kong Sevens-so its a double whammy, since Expats from all over Asia converge on Hong Kong and many of those Rugby fans have “needs” that must be attended to.
I was never much of a Fenwicks fan, truth be told. It was too crowded and it was too depressing. There where better places to go-Dusk till Dawn always had better bands IMHO. And, unlike Fenwicks, you don’t have to cut the desperation with a knife as you walk in.
It would be interesting to see how this changes the complexion of the other bars in Wanchai. Hmmmm…might be an idea for a trip back to Hong Kong in their somewhere…………
“cut the desperation with a knife” – exactly! As I understand it, the girls are/were forced to pay their first few drinks commissions to the bar (read Triads), so it was only after they had squeezed you for quite a few of theirs and their friends’ drinks that they even started making money. But one of them I met prefers Singapore because she can “close business” in a dark corner of the bar in Dempsy Rd or Paramount Hotel without having to “go back you hotel.” No such limitation in some of the proper HK girlie bars. Can’t say I’ll miss it either actually.