Amsterdam leaders ready to ban beer bikes, restrict polluting scooters

The Amsterdam Mayor and Aldermen submitted a proposal to the city council to ban beer bikes from the city center. Sustainability alderman Abdeluheb Choho also plans to create an environmental zone in the city center banning polluting scooters. Mayor Eberhard van der Laan and his aldermen want to ban beer bikes from streets and areas where the moving bars and their drivers cause "undue nuisance and inconvenience", the city announced in a press release on Tuesday. Should the council agree to the proposed amendment to the General Municipal Regulation, the mayor will be able to ban beer bikes from certain areas in the second quarter of next year. The beer bike ban will initially cover most of the city center and may in the future be extended to other parts of the city where beer bikes cause nuisance, such as the Museumplein and Vondelpark. Residents have long complained about the nuisance caused by the bikes and their "often drunken drivers" in traffic and in general, according to the city. With this ban the Mayor and aldermen hope to address this nuisance to residents and visitors and improve the quality of life in the city. Alderman Choho announced his plans to create an environmental zone banning polluting scooters on television program EenVandaag on Tuesday. From 2018 scooters made before 2011 will no longer be allowed in the city center, if the alderman gets his proposal approved. He will submit a concrete proposal to the city council next month. Choho's proposal forms part of a larger plan in which the open air in Amsterdam must be emission-free and electric vehicles are subsidized. Utrecht also recently announced plans to ban polluting scooters and mopeds from the city center. The city is investigating possibilities to implement an environmental zone in 2020.