Café de la Poste Raid: Patron Describes "Awkward" and Excessive Number of Police Officers

Police raids on expat catering bars and restaurants are by no means a rare occurrence in Beijing these days, what with patrons at Side Street being subjected to on-site urine tests earlier this summer, not to mention a slew of drug testing at establishments like Great Leap Brewing and Café de la Poste last year. However, the authorities' return to Café de la Poste on Friday (Aug 24) seemed particularly excessive to at least one patron, who spoke anonymously to the Beijinger after the raid.

She recalled being among a handful of customers at the Yonghegong adjacent bar and bistro at around 9pm, when over a dozen policemen entered and began ordering the patrons, in perfect English, to take out their passports to be checked.

"I asked what should I do if I didn’t bring my passport, but he told me there’s no need to take out my 身份证 shēnfèn zhèng [ID card] as he obviously thought I was Chinese," said our anonymous source, who is in fact Russian. She added: "When I said I’m a foreigner they said a picture or a passport number will suffice."

She laughed while recalling how the number of officers on site outnumbered the actual customers inside, saying "It looked awkward, really. All the policemen were just standing there and doing nothing." This show of force wasn't intimidating in her view; instead, she joked about how it merely slowed down the servers bringing wine to the customers. After their passports were checked, she recalled that some customers were ordered to line up by the restroom, small plastic containers in hand, for urine tests.

"I don’t know when or how they decided who should be the ones to pee, but honestly, I felt like they made only Americans do it. Because they didn’t ask me or my sister, and we’re Russian ... Maybe they only made people pee who are from the countries that are not doing well politically with China," she said. She commented that: "Actually it was quite entertaining for me to watch the raid from the front seat, maybe because I don’t do drugs and my documents are all legal," before going on to recommend that foreigners comply with laws and the authorities to minimize such hassle.

That sentiment is shared by Café de la Poste co-owner Tristan Macquet, who implores fellow foreigners to be law abiding. He's also quick to add that expats shouldn't panic if they are caught in such a raid, saying: "Officers are usually firm but respectful. Remember that they're just doing their jobs." He recommends that all Beijing expats keep a printed copy or screenshot on their phones of their passport, visa, and police registration, along with emergency numbers for their embassy or consulate.

READ: Café de la Poste Revamps Menu, Keeps Same Old Messy Charm

For Macquet, there was an upside to this disruptive raid: no one tested positive for drug use at Café de la Poste on Friday, and no arrests were made. "As far as we're concerned, we've never had any of our patrons test positive," he says.

However, that silver lining is pretty meager for Macquet. "I would not say we're relieved," he says, before going on to explain the toll these raids take on foreign businesses in Beijing: "Nowadays with WeChat, the news of a raid spreads like wildfire, and the news alone is enough to make people change their evening destination. That can be hard for business, especially on weekends or evenings that are usually pretty crowded everywhere," he says. In order to mitigate such damage, he says "once the raid is over, we inform our patrons in all Café de la Poste-related groups of what happened and that everything is now OK."

It's far from an ideal setup, but Macquet can only shrug and say: "Police checks like that happen often in Beijing. It's now part of what is running a restaurant-bar here."

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Photo courtesy of anonymous interviewee, WeChat, Guide Pal