K-Town continues to be the place for late-night illegal boozing and harmonizing over musty Hall & Oates tunes in private karaoke rooms. The Seoul Times - reporting on everything Korean - lifts a story from the New York Times, and manages to astound us with the info that there are more than 500 "night-life establishments" within the boundaries of K-Town. And the illegal things those Koreans do would have Chief Bratton's head spinning.
"I've seen more people smoke indoors than I've seen in Vegas." [says Rosen Brewery Executive Chef Robert Luna.] Smoking indoors is illegal in California, but a sizable minority of Koreatown businesses flout the law either because "they don't care" or do not know what the law is because of a language barrier, said Officer Jason Lee, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department. The district is not a high-crime area, he said, but alcohol violations are a big problem, particularly sales after hours, to minors or in clubs where hostesses ask patrons to buy them drinks. "That's a style of drinking that may be legal in Korea but here it's illegal," said Officer Lee...
While it's not rare to find oneself in the middle of a police raid while enjoying liquored-up karaokeing (we have), we say it's always ok to buy a pretty girl a cocktail in K-Town, even though she may be a Thai prostitute. If Koreatown is wrong, then we never want to be right. picture credit: KTown213.com
· It's Koreatown, Jake [The Seoul Times]