Amsterdam mayor: Limiting Erotic Center hospitality business addresses residents' fears

Plans for a proposed Erotic Center outside of Amsterdam's city center will be modified to reduce the number of hospitality businesses permitted inside, Mayor Femke Halsema wrote in a letter to City Council on Wednesday. Halsema said this should address many of the concerns residents raised about the Erotic Center. The number of workplaces for sex workers was left unchanged at roughly 100, she stated.

The controversial Erotic Center was planned as a way to relocate dozens of Red Light District windows, where sex workers can ply their trade in the old city center. Halsema and the coalition of aldermen believe they can relieve nuisance in the city center by consolidating sex worker facilities into a single building located elsewhere. The city noted that the number of hotel nights booked in Amsterdam has shot up from eight million in 2004, and could reach 23 million in 2024.

The political leaders have narrowed their list of possible locations to two in Amsterdam-Zuid near the RAI convention center, and one by the NDSM-Werf in Amsterdam-Noord. That decision raised the ire of residents near the proposed sites, as well as many business owners, educators, at other organisations, like the European Medicines Agency.

Halsema said they are "very aware of the sometimes opposing views, the objections and the emotions that the choice for the three locations has aroused. This was also reflected in the many hundreds of questions and comments received by the Board. These focus on nuisance and safety, large visitor numbers, and the possible effect on the character and accessibility of the neighborhood and the area."

To address this, Halsema and the aldermen want to tweak the Erotic Center's entertainment offerings. This will include "limiting the hospitality functions," but also combining them "as much as possible" with cultural offerings at the center. They hope this will reduce overall numbers of people who plan to visit the Erotic Center.

It shows a reversal from the announcement of the Erotic Center. The city boasted that the building would be bustling with activity parallel to the sex work, and needed a theater, entertainment facilities, cultural offerings, and hospitality businesses.

"However, the number of sex workplaces will remain approximately 100," Halsema wrote in the letter. Residents of both Noord and Zuid fear that the throngs of tourists in the city center will be rerouted to their residential neighborhoods placing the burden brought by the tourists to their shoulders. This includes crowds, pickpocketing, mugging, public disorder, and drug dealing. They have argued that the city politicians are not actually tackling any of these problems, but are simply shifting them.

Halsemsa also said in her letter that city leaders will soon draw up more details about supervising the Erotic Center, enforcement in the area, further preventing nuisance, and keeping neighbourhoods accessible for residents and stakeholders. Further details will be released after the summer as the city gets closer to a final decision on the location. This should happen by December after they can evaluate final drafts of advisory statements from the Amsterdam-Noord and Amsterdam-Zuid district councils, both of which have reacted negatively towards the city plans.

The mayor also promised to draw up a letter about the possibility of sex workers being allowed to work from home, as is being trialed in Utrecht. A letter will also be sent about the future of sex work in the city, Halsema said.

The sex workers themselves have said clearly and repeatedly that they do not want to leave the Red Light District. Many have said in a protest and in interviews with NL Times that they do not believe the mayor's claim that she has the sex workers' best intentions in mind.

The full City Council could vote on the Erotic Center in the first quarter of next year.