Tourists unfazed by Amsterdam's ban on smoking weed on Red Light District streets

From next Thursday, people will no longer be allowed to smoke weed outside on the Red Light District streets. Tourists seem confused by the new rule but won’t let it deter them from visiting Amsterdam. Coffeeshops aren’t concerned that it will be bad for business, Parool reports after speaking to tourists and coffeeshop owners in the city over the long weekend.

Surprise, followed by indifference, is what the newspaper found when asking tourists about the “blowverbod” taking effect on May 25. The ban applies to the streets in the Wallen. People can still smoke weed on the terraces operated by coffeeshops. Those caught smoking weed on the street could face a fine of 50 euros.

“But the coffeeshops remain?” tourist Anna from Osnabruck made sure. “That’s a shame. It’s pleasant to smoke on the street. People also sit on the terrace, right? What’s the problem?” The ban won’t keep her away, she said. “Are we allowed to smoke indoors? Then we’ll do that.”

“Where should we smoke then?” Enzo from Naples asked the newspaper. It is already illegal to smoke weed on the street where he and his friends live, so they won’t mind smoking inside. But they found the reason for the ban difficult to understand. “Too busy? I don’t understand. I hardly see people smoking outside. Only us.”

Coffeeshops aren’t worried that the blowverbod will negatively impact their businesses. “We’ll just keep people inside,” a seller at City Hall near Damstraat said. “That is not such a problem. We now ask them not to smoke in front of the door because it bothers our neighbors.”

“We already give our customers, especially when they come from abroad, information about what they are buying and what they are allowed to do with it. Soon we will tell them that they are not allowed to smoke on the street,” said Joachim Helms, owner of Green House. “They’ll stay inside longer if they are not allowed to smoke on the street and order more.”
Helms expects the ban won’t reduce the number of tourists visiting the Red Light District. He thinks enforcement outside the shops will prove to be the problem. “The enforcement of the alcohol ban is already not working. Then this won’t work either,” Helms, also the spokesperson for the trade association BCD, told the newspaper. “The lack of enforcers in the city is not being addressed.”