Amsterdam bans marijuana in the red light district

The old town of Amsterdam, the part of the Dutch capital that is the red light district and the consequences of mass tourism and partying, the community is looking for ways to reduce its attractiveness to certain visitors and are considering smoking marijuana in the neighborhood and limit opening hours for the sale of soft drugs.

The Council has several proposals on the table. These have yet to be discussed with neighbours, businessmen and the council, including banning the smoking of marijuana in the old town, closing hotels and prostitution early on weekends and further restricting the sale of alcohol in the area . the sale of which in shops and cafes is already prohibited from Thursday to Sunday until early 4 p.m

City Hall is also studying the possibility of restricting the distribution of soft drugs in the region’s “coffee shop,” places where marijuana is sold and consumed, in the last hours of the afternoon to take another step in reducing the consequences of the abuse of drugs and alcohol on the street.

The municipality mainly wants to improve the lives of the people living in the area, after the migration to the periphery in recent years because of the insecurity, noise and dirt that life in the old city center of Amsterdam entails.

“Tourists also attract street vendors, which in turn leads to crime and insecurity. The atmosphere can get gloomy, especially at night. People who are under the influence stay for a long time. Residents cannot sleep well and the neighborhood is becoming unsafe and uninhabitable,” the municipality complained.

The aim, he explains, is “to continue to counteract the enormous unrest, especially at night, in the De Wallen area, which also includes the red light district”. Local residents and entrepreneurs have four weeks to comment on the proposals before the plenary debate on the measures begins. If approved by the Council, they will enter into force in mid-May.

These measures come on top of current measures such as banning alcohol on the street, enforcing restrictions on street vendors, limiting one-way traffic during peak times and closing off parts of the Red Light District during peak tourist times.

“If the inconveniences of a smoking ban are not sufficiently reduced, the possibilities of a smoking ban on the terraces of cafés in the neighborhood will also be analysed,” warned the alderman, who has been intensively looking for solutions to the most controversial issues in recent years. neighbourhood. the city: the red light district and the “coffee shop”.

One of the measures already taken by the municipality is that establishments with a hotel license will close at 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays (instead of 4 a.m.), while prostitution establishments may remain open until 3 a.m., in effect until 6 a.m. ‘in the morning. to better distribute the masses, not New customers from 1 pm

“We also want the terraces to close at 1 a.m. in the summer months, instead of at 2 a.m. as now. For four weeks you can give your opinion on the evolution of the patio grilles,” the town hall asks the people of Amsterdam on its website.

Two years ago, Amsterdam wanted to go a step further and ban foreign tourists from cafes because of the increased demand for soft drugs as a result of ‘cannabis tourism’, but the measure has not yet been implemented.

Almost a third of these coffee shops in the Netherlands are located in Amsterdam. According to a study by the municipality, many foreign tourists would no longer want to come to Amsterdam if they were banned from ‘coffee shops’, meaning that the capital will only need 73 shops by 2025 to meet local demand.

Amsterdam is also studying the possibility of moving the red light district to a kind of ‘erotic centre’ in another part of the capital, away from the prostitution in the tourist centre, in order to attract ‘another tourist’ to the city. the locals want to go it alone.