Amsterdam to protect brown cafés with landmark status

Amsterdam will protect its brown cafés with a municipal landmark status to prevent them from disappearing from the street scene. The city will also investigate whether the brown cafés can be recognized as intangible heritage by UNESCO. A city council unanimously adopted a PvdA proposal to that effect on Thursday, Parool reports.

According to PvdA faction leader Lian Heinhuis, the brown café is part of Amsterdam’s soul. And yet, many such “iconic places” are disappearing to make way for big money. “As an Amsterdam café owner nicely described it: the purification of the city is becoming increasingly visible,” Heinhuis said. “The identity of the city should not be determined by who has the most money.”

The city council asked the municipality to map out the brown cafés to monitor how many are disappearing. The cafés that remain can be designated as municipal monuments, which means that interiors can’t easily be changed, among other things. And the municipality must apply for heritage status at UNESCO for the brown cafés.

The combination of these measures should ensure “that the brown cafés, which are culturally, historically, socially, and economically important for our city, will not disappear from the street scene,” said Heinhuis.