Thick fumes of cannabis smoke were noticeably absent from the air of Amsterdam’s red light district on Thursday, the familiar smell replaced by dank canal water and rats on the first day of a ban on smoking marijuana in public.
After years of complaints from residents about wild behaviour from 18 million annual visitors, a crackdown on nuisance tourism is in full swing. Last month, the municipality started a “stay away” campaign – aimed first at misbehaving Britons – that banned alcohol sales in shops at the weekend and imposed earlier closing times for window brothels and pubs.
Now, tourists and residents alike face a €100 (£87) fine for public cannabis smoking in and around the red light district, to “reduce crowding and nuisance in the area”.
For locals sick of rowdy stag nights, piles of rubbish and their doorsteps being used as lavatories, the ban in De Wallen – “the old city walls” – is a sign their concerns are being taken seriously. The Amsterdam mayor, Femke Halsema, and all political parties agree that crowds of post-pandemic tourists have compromised livability, while at peak times emergency vehicles cannot access the narrow, medieval streets.
“Finally, smoking cannabis is banned in public spaces,” said Diederik Boomsma, a Christian Democratic Appeal councillor who has long campaigned for tourists to be banned from buying cannabis at all.
“This will send an important message to the gormless and feckless who think they can come here on a holiday from morality. Newsflash to all potheads: go giggle elsewhere! Let’s hope that the citizens of Amsterdam reclaim their ancient, beautiful city centre from the glassy-eyed zombies.”
Els Iping, a local resident, and the “Stop de Gekte” (stop the madness) group had got so sick of the nuisance that in recent months they had mounted vigilante “Wallen Watch” patrols on weekend nights, asking tourists to behave. “We don’t want that image of sex and drugs any more,” she said, adding that the patrols had been suspended due to intimidation from local businesses. “Tourists have never sworn at us: they just say sorry, because they also think it’s all a bit strange. We are happy with every step the council takes.”
The city has bigger plans. Halsema is talking to private developers about building a controversial, large-scale erotic centre elsewhere and removing 100 brothel windows from the Wallen. She has not given up on the idea of enforcing a national residents-only law for coffee shops – where semi-legal cannabis is for sale. Meanwhile, there is a national determination to crack down on drug-related criminality that research suggests is behind some of the cash-based red light district businesses.
But on the evening before the ban began, business owners were gathering worriedly on the streets, cursing resident activists and worrying that tourists would stop coming.
Jim Zielinski, a spokesperson for the Bulldog coffee shop and a board member of business group Biz Burgwallen, said some were angry. “The soul of the neighbourhood, what makes it so extraordinary, is slowly being pulled out,” he said. “It’s like a game of Jenga: each time they take a block away and at some point the whole pile will collapse.”
He believes the answer is more policing of existing laws against public alcohol drinking and drug dealing. “The city simply cannot get a grip on safety, littering, the people who walk around the streets screaming and have no respect,” he said.
Some tourists in the area on Thursday morning thought it was reasonable to ban public cannabis smoking while continuing to let people buy and smoke in coffee shops. Ethan Nordberg, 19, an American studying in Germany, was surprised at the new fines. “We did see signs but we thought they were just there,” he said. His friend Jason Diehl, 18, added that the Netherlands was still relatively permissive. “There’s a €140 fine for public urination, but in the US, you would go on the sex offenders list for indecent exposure!” he said.
A middle-aged English man sitting on a cafe terrace furtively smoking a joint had not heard about the “stay away” campaign. He decided he didn’t want to talk to the press.
Some locals worry Amsterdammers are just as likely to be caught up in the fines, especially after long-running battles with the council over new Airbnb-style rental regulation. “The rules will be difficult for visitors to understand, because they might be able to smoke on the other side of the canal, or on a private terrace in the red light district,” said Maarten Bruinsma, chair of the Amsterdam Gastvrij, and a bed and breakfast owner. “So we can only hope the council doesn’t treat unwitting offenders as disproportionately as they did short-stay hosts, who made unintentional mistakes thanks to complex rules.”
The policy sparked contrarian instincts among others. One occasional joint smoker commented: “It almost makes one want to sit on one’s front step smoking cannabis in public.”
