Amsterdam bans outdoor cannabis smoking in red-light district

The City of Amsterdam is banning outdoor marijuana smoking in its famed red-light district.

Members of Amsterdam’s city council voted on Wednesday to impose a €100 fine on anyone who smokes weed on the streets of the central district, Margriet Luttikhuizen, a spokesperson for the municipality of the Dutch capital, told Bloomberg.

The ban will come into effect on May 25 and will be enforced by police and local officials, said Luttikhuizen.

Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema has been advocating reform of the red-light district in order to reduce nuisance behaviour and organised crime in the city centre. The city is also considering a new location for an erotic centre away from the district. 

“The ban is part of a broader set of measures aiming to reduce nuisance, improve the residents’ night’s sleep and increase the livability and safety,” Luttikhuizen said.  

While cannabis is not legal in the Netherlands, possession of up to five grams is decriminalised. Licensed “coffee shops” are allowed to sell small amounts of the drug to people older than 18.

Halsema is determined to permanently shift the economic balance between residents and tourists, and rethink Amsterdam’s free-wheeling image as a magnet for sex- and drug-seeking vacationers. 

“It’s not a form of tourism we welcome or don’t welcome — it’s a form of behaviour,” Halsema said in a Bloomberg interview in July. “People coming here to lose their morals is a problem for us.”

Bloomberg