The old town of Amsterdam, the part of the Dutch capital that includes the Red Light District, suffers the consequences of mass tourism and carnival, so the municipality seeks ways to reduce its attractiveness to certain visitors and considers banning marijuana smoking in the zone and limit the hours of sale of soft drugs. The council has a series of proposals on the table, which still need to be discussed with residents, businessmen and the council, and which include banning marijuana smoking in the old town, closing hotels and prostitution earlier on weekends, and further restricting plus the sale of alcohol in the area, the sale of which is already prohibited in shops and cafeterias from Thursday to Sunday from 4:00 p.m. The community government is also investigating the possibility of limiting the distribution of soft drugs in coffeeshops, areas for the sale and consumption of marijuana, in the area during the late afternoon hours, in a further step towards reducing the consequences of drug abuse. drugs and alcohol on the streets. [Amsterdam prohibits guided visits to prostitutes in the Red Light District] The municipality seeks above all to improve the lives of the personalities that reside in the area, after the exodus of recent years to the periphery due to insecurities, noise and dirt that You are supposed to live in the old town of Amsterdam. “Tourists also attract street vendors which in turn lead to crime and insecurity. The atmosphere can become gloomy, especially at night. Personalities under the influence stay long. Residents cannot sleep well and the neighborhood becomes becomes unsafe and livable”, laments the council. At vitality in May The goal, he explains, is to “counter even more the huge disturbances, especially at night,” in the De Wallen area, which includes the Red Light District. Neighbors and businessmen will have four weeks to give their opinion on the proposals, before the full council debates the measures. If approved by the council, they would enter vitality in mid-May. These measures are added to others that are already in place, such as the ban on drinking alcohol in the street, the application of restrictions on street vendors, the limitation of one-way traffic during periods of greatest activity, and the closure of parts of the Red Light District at times of high tourism. [Amsterdam wants to end joint tourism: foreigners will not be able to buy marijuana] “If the nuisances do not diminish enough with the smoking ban, the possibilities of banning smoking on the terraces of the cafes in the area will also be studied”, warned the City Council, which has intensified in recent years the search for solutions to the most controversial tourist attractions in the city: the Red Light District and the “coffeeshops”. One of the measures already decided by the municipality is that establishments with a hospitality license close their doors at 02:00 on Fridays and Saturdays (instead of 04:00), while prostitution businesses can remain open until 03:00, in place until 06.00 in the morning.” “To better distribute to the wide ranges, new customers are not allowed after 1.00 in the morning.” “We also want to close the terraces at 1.00 am in the summer months, in place of 2.00 like now. You can give your opinion for four weeks on the advancement of the hours of the terraces”, the city council asks the residents of Amsterdam on its website. Two years ago, Amsterdam wanted to go a step further and prohibit foreign tourists from accessing coffeeshops , due to the increase in demand for soft drugs caused by “marijuana tourism”, but the measure has not gone ahead, at least for the moment. Almost a third of these coffee shops in the Netherlands are located in Amsterdam. According to an investigation carried out by carried out by the municipality, a large number of foreign tourists would no longer want to come to Amsterdam if they were banned from entering the “coffeeshops”, which would mean that, by 2025, the capital only needs 73 areas to meet regional demand. Amsterdam is also investigating the possibility of moving the Red Light District to a kind of “erotic center” in another part of the capital, away from prostitution in the tourist center, in a bid to attract “a different tourist e” to the city, making it a place that the residents themselves want to go to as well. Filed under Amsterdam, Cannabis, Marijuana, Prostitution Follow the topics that interest you source
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