AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – The city of Amsterdam, a popular destination for tourists for its coffee shops, will ban public cannabis consumption in the red light district, as part of a campaign to restore order to the area .
Street drug use will be banned in this section of town where brothels, sex shops and strip clubs are located, the city council said in a statement Thursday.
The measure was called a “historic intervention” by the Dutch newspaper “Het Parool” in Amsterdam, and the city council indicated that the ban could later be extended to coffee shop terraces.
This measure is part of a campaign led by the first female mayor of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema, to improve the quality of life of the inhabitants of the district. The area attracts millions of tourists each year, but also crime.
“Residents of the Old Town suffer greatly from mass tourism and alcohol and drug abuse in the streets,” the city council said in its statement.
“Tourists also attract street dealers, which in turn cause crime and insecurity.”
The city also plans to reduce the opening hours of restaurants, bars and places of prostitution, and to continue to limit the sale of alcohol in the red light district.
(Report Charlotte Van Campenhout, French version Augustin Turpin, edited by Matthieu Protard)
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