Sun, 22 November 2009
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The owners of cafés in the centre of Amsterdam are again up in arms against what they say is the umpteenth attempt to turn the city into a prudish provincial backwater.
By Frank Scimone.A majority of the Amsterdam district council 'Amsterdam Centrum' have voted in favour of an ordinance that would forbid customers from sitting outside on a terrace past midnight. A Dutch newspaper says the centre of Amsterdam is moving another step towards becoming a 'Staphorst on the Amstel'. Staphorst is considered the most strict and devout Calvinist town in the Netherlands.
Council ruling
Previously the district council ruled that customers cannot drink while standing. The free newspaper De Pers quotes an owner of a pub in Amsterdam, who says with a deep sigh:
"Now we'll have to hire an extra employee to act as a sort of police officer who will walk around seeing to it that customers don't drink while standing. They will also have to ensure that customers are gone (from the terrace) by midnight... when they'd rather sit there until four." Earlier, the council ruled that outside terraces cannot be heated because it is a waste of energy and hence environmentally unfriendly.
Conflict with businesses
In recent years the district council, which was founded in 2002, has come into conflict with the owners of pubs, cafés and nightclubs as well as members of the gay community who say that a mania for rules and regulations is making Amsterdam prudish, provincial and boring.
The district council has also been criticised for ordering the closure of 150 terraces, banning the construction of new hotels and organising fewer events.
"Cleaning up" the Red Light District
The Amsterdam City Council is also in the process of "cleaning up" the city. Permits for a large numbers of rooms in the Red Light District, where prostitutes stand behind windows, are being rescinded.
The rooms are being turned into fashion shops and the women replaced by mannequins in designer clothes. Recently the town council ordered the closure of the famous sex club Yab Yum as well as the live-sex theatre Casa Rosso.
One website, which has collected thousands of signatures protesting against the council's policies, writes:
Terrible and very very sad. Where is the Famous Dutch resistance? Where is the activism when culture is under the gun?
It reminds me of when funding for the arts was cut after U.S. artist Andres Serrano's exhibition of "Piss Christ", no one complained about the public rebuke of this work which the cut in funding signified, but the repercussions lasted longer than the memory of their cause.
Unfortunately according to the retail giants every European City now has to look and feel the same. I guess the local authority has very little say in what happens anymore.
The culture diminishes pretty quickly in these situations, and its all down to business! Its the only way to increase the rents.
True this is terrible they should allow prostitusion and drunk tennage tourist to disindegrate half dead in the canal waters while chinese tourist take a glimse of an anal penetration somehere in de wallen ..,, Our culture is still for graps people .....long live amstzerdam and its many ways to use people as money making meat.!(prostit, stoners , tourists , chinese tourists)
amsterdam is in need of a lot so attacking the most vulnerable is obvious, The restaurants totally suck there for one and the hotels are gross and overpriced, the shopping isn't very good either so why are they going after their best asset (the red light district) if anything tell the old farts (the council) that they should be voting on putting more nature too not just the parks there but tree line and flower line amsterdam and give it more beauty, this is the first place people go when they get off the plane in europe and it's the least they can do is fix up amsterdam and give it more beauty and more fun night life not just a small expensive heiniken
p.s. the service sucks there too as they tend to be rude and cold << that needs some serious overhauling.
Clear the prostitutes out of the red light district??
Hmmmmmm, ok how about get rid of all London red buses and no more trooping the colour on horseguards parade and turn buckinham palace into an exclusive hotel for the rich, after all the queen has enough other residences.
The red light district is part of the CULTURE of Amsterdam and to a large extent what it's famous for. It is what makes it different from Berlin, Prague, London, Paris....
If you want to make it just another boring city...go ahead 'clean up' the red light district. On the subject of prostitution, as businesses go it's one of the most honest. if women want to sell their bodies, or rather hire them out, that's up to them
I first saw Amsterdam, quite by chance, 15 years ago. It seemed less 'fixed up' then, and it still had its old 70's soul. I feel like Amsterdam has lost its' way since then. It feels meaner and much more commercial, and the fun has, for the most part, gone. I remember friendly coffeeshops and kinder attitudes all around. Now, I feel like it is to become just another rude Euro tourist trap. I feel like Amsterdam has a drinking problem like most European cities, except it is worse than most due to reasons that I am not sure about, but may have to do with the English take on AMS as being Sodom or Gommorah, or the dutch soccer club idea that pissing and schatting in public is okay when you are shitfaced and your team won, or lost, or whatever.
If the city council wants to address the real problem they need to not look first at the whores or the pot, but take a long look instead at what really ails the city, namely booze. It is a booze soaked hell hole at this point. So sad to see my favorite city go through this. My best friend in Amsterdam, who was raised in the old city, says that Amsterdam Centraal is a 'village', and should be restord as such. I think he is severely deluded. A village of drunks perhaps. I am all for 'cleaning up' if that means saving any and all of the cities ancint structures and charm, but if cleaning up the city means chasing out the whores and relagating pot smokers to illegal status while leaving the drunks to carouse and piss and schatt all about the place, well, I think some re-thinking of what it means to 'clean up' should be done.
not to mention the no-smoking ban....why not ban everything thats slightly harmfull altogether? night clubs and bars are just there for people to get drunk, talk, and listen to loud music....my my why cafes! coffee is also a drug, why not ban that? ban cars and trams, scooters and bike bells...how much noise do they make? and theyre so dangerous! Fill all the canals, people might fall in!
What is the point of living in a city at all if you can't have a little fun?!!?
well its also this EU thing....how could anybody think the EU is streghthening the European identity is beyond me...death to Culture alltogether! I would certainly say we are getting to the level or even surpassing the prudeness of America...
I was born and spent my first 13 years in my kikkerlandje and am saddened by the fact that the, I was told, two ruling majority parties are quite Christian in their views; hence, the 'changes' that need to be made. As for the Red Light District--it is as old as the city itself. From what I have heard of the people to whom I spoke (I returned from there yesterday), it is not the Red Light District that is the problem, but rather the value of property at that location, which certain people want to acquire. Ah, money has become more valuable than people themselves. When I was growing up in Holland, people came first and money second.
What truly saddened me was to see how the historic orphanage was turned into a shopping mall. Just leaving the entrances to the orphanage hardly makes turning the site into a commercial entity is, to me, desecrating.
What was wrong with the myriad of stores and shops found all over Amsterdam? People came to Amsterdam to experience the city for its reputation. That reputation is changing far too rapidly.
I find it rather ironic that at the time when other countries whose leaders have been watching the Dutch system in dealing with drugs,are now seriously contemplating adopting what appears to be a successful program, these two ruling parties want to change the way coffee shops are run.
Jesus, what irresponsible moves are made in your name!
Amsterdam has always had an ethos of anything goes unless it receives a complaint from anyone who suffers annoyance due to the activity. The response has always been swift and robust. This has worked. I assume complaints of noise have been made against certain terraces in certain locations. This should be addressed at a local level. Blanket knee jerk legislation has more victims than winners and leads to granny states motivated by money grabbing lawyers who take health and safety law suits to a new dimension of stupidity. They will be draining the canals soon in case some idiot falls in and sues because there wasn't a six foot high fence protecting his well being after being sold a joint which wasn't his responsibility and he wouldn't have taken unless it was legally on sale. Long live common sense.
it has already lost its charm, unfriendly to all foreigners, out for a euro on everything, changing the guilder sign to the euro sign with no conversion (2.50 guilders to the euro, the government were very happy to take the tax) they showed the public on all levels how to behave, greed kills, i left quickly as many others, enjoy your isolationism, farewell
it has already lost its charm, unfriendly to all foreigners, out for a euro on everything, changing the guilder sign to the euro sign with no conversion (2.50 guilders to the euro, the government were very happy to take the tax) they showed the public on all levels how to behave, greed kills, i left quickly as many others, enjoy your isolationism, farewell
Gerry, I could not have said it better! I certainly hope Nederland doesn't go the way of the U.S. with its eager-to-sue population and its, in my opinion, invertebrate judges who had they a backbone would order most of this cases out of the courtroom.
I, wholeheartedly, concur--Long live common sense!!!
god, i hope it's not dead.
And Emmitt, as for the drunks in Amsterdam--at least they're not getting behind the wheel of a car and killing people in the process. What is the most damage they can incur? Falling off their bicycles,or tripping over their own feet? Drunks are everywhere. Correct me if I'am wrong.
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