Before Covid-19, the famous red light district of Amsterdam attracted three million people each year from all over Europe (France, Germany and Belgium in the lead). Tourists attracted by the prostitutes in the window and the coffee-shops, where you can buy and smoke your cannabis. It is not legal but tolerated.
With the end of the pandemic, this rather special kind of tourism has taken off again. Nuisances too. During the Easter weekend, two French people aged 22 and 27 were injured during an altercation by stabbings, place of the old church, in the heart of the red light district.
(https://t.co/q49rPcQ4Yf): Two youths aged 22 and 27 stabbed at #Amsterdam, the fugitive suspect: Two young French tourists were injured with a knife in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. The circumstances of the incident.. https://t.co/RJrAf4o0Qq pic.twitter.com/cWHB4SPt5z
— Titrespresse.com (@titrespresse) April 19, 2022
The mayor of the city denounces an increase in violence and crime. And to limit the flow of young revelers, a source of so many problems, she proposes to ban the sale of marijuana to foreign tourists, to reserve it for locals.
This subject is a sea snake. A law already exists at the national level which limits the access of coffee-shops to the inhabitants. In Amsterdam, it has never been applied. Mayor Femke Halsema, who has been in office since 2018, last year submitted to the city council her draft “residency criteria” for the sale of cannabis.
Netherlands: Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema plans to press ahead with tourist cannabis cafe ban https://t.co/9WglGb31d3 pic.twitter.com/SicK6x4qec
— DutchNewsAgency (@100newsnl) April 12, 2022
It didn’t pass. Elected officials were afraid to see the development of the black market and street dealers, the consumption of hard drugs and insecurity, citing the examples of other cities such as Maastricht and Den Bosch. The other argument is that many traders would be forced to lower the curtain. According to local studies, 66 coffee-shops would be enough to meet local demand. According to the Dutch News, there are 166 today.
This year, his measure presented on April 11 is hardly more likely to pass: the Democrats and the green left, who are in the majority on the municipal council, are still opposed to this measure, they have made it known. They also estimate that to properly apply it and discourage foreign buyers of cannabis, 300 additional police officers would be needed on the streets of the city. We are not there.
There is also the question of the economic consequences. According to a survey carried out last year by the city’s statistics department, a third of tourists answer that if they are no longer allowed to enter coffee shops, they will come to Amsterdam less often. One in ten even answers “not at all”! But the mayor (ecologist) holds firm against her own party. It launched a new campaign against street trading, with warning signs, increased camera surveillance and the use of “hosts” to warn tourists of the risks in the city center and the red light district.
And if her project does not pass, she has another idea: to move the red light district, to relocate the sex and drug industry outside the city in a large shopping center for adults, Eros Center, 5 000 square meters of sexual activities and entertainment. The project is still in the pipeline.