Amsterdam mulls enforcement of ban on foreigners in coffeeshops

An Australian tourist smoking in a coffeeshop in Amsterdam during normal times

Credit: MICHEL PORRO /AP

Lost weekends in Amsterdam may be about to go up in smoke after the city’s mayor on Friday announced she wanted to ban foreign tourists from cannabis coffeeshops.

The proposal, one of a number included in a plan to shrink the local cannabis market and boost transparency, will be initially put to the city council at the end of January and would include a transition period if eventually adopted.

In recent years, concerns have escalated about millions of tourists who visit Amsterdam to drink and ‘blow’, driving out locals in the Red Light District. 

The extent of overtourism was starkly illustrated during the first coronavirus lockdown, when locals reported that the popular nightlife area was completely empty.

Since then, tourism chiefs, local businesses and groups of residents have all called to change the image of Amsterdam, partly by enforcing a 2013 law that bans non-residents from coffeeshops. 

Now, mayor Femke Halsema, the public prosecution and the police have written to councillors to formally include the measure as part of a plan to bring the cannabis trade to a “manageable” level and reduce nuisance and criminality in the city centre.

“This is a very positive step,” local ChristenUnie politician Don Ceder told The Telegraph. “The coronavirus lockdown showed that a lot of people come to Amsterdam for drug tourism. Those that came back at first were not coming for congresses or culture. 

“This is really important to reduce the magnetism of the coffeeshops because we need to change the international image of Amsterdam as the drugs capital of the world.”

Although the coffeeshops come under the mayor’s jurisdiction, he expects councillors to debate the measures more fully in March and implement them at the end of the year. “We need to focus on making sure there is enough policing capacity so that we don’t create street dealing,” he added.

Although cannabis is illegal in the Netherlands, its sale is tolerated. The mayor denied that this move would change that.

“We are absolutely not heading for a cannabis-free Amsterdam because coffeeshops belong to the city,” Ms Halsema told local newspaper Het Parool. “But there is a huge desire to change the tourism. 

“Our freedom should not be a license for large groups of young people to throw up in the canals because they have smoked and drunk too much.”

In the last 20 years, the number of coffeeshops in the capital has been cut from 283 to 166, however, city research shows that 57 per cent of tourists visiting the centre name coffeeshops as an important reason for their travel. In 2019, the city had 15.5m overnight stays.

Joachim Helms, from the BCD association that represents cannabis traders, said that the plans would be bad for the liveability of the city.

“People want to smoke their joints and if they can’t do it in a coffeeshop then they will buy it on the street,” he told Het Parool.