Final information event on Amsterdam's planned Erotic Center today
Today, the municipality of Amsterdam is holding the last of two information events on its plans to build an Erotic Center in the Zuid district in 2031. Locals can go there to raise concerns or get information directly from officials. Unlike previous information events, which often got out of hand with high-running emotions, attendees have to register for a time slot and will meet with officials one-on-one.
The event is happening in the Novotel, near the location on Europaboulevard that the city designated as the site for the Erotic Center. According to the city, the center is necessary to relieve the pressure on the Red Light District and to create a safe workplace for sex workers. Locals are less convinced.
Parool spoke to a few locals who attended the first information event on Wednesday evening. Mascha Koopmans, who bought a house in the neighborhood in 2019, is still very concerned about the attractive effect the Erotic Center will have. “That the erotic center will keep everything ‘within the walls’ is a naive fairy tale,” she told the newspaper after the information event failed to assuage her concerns. “People who want to see the erotic center for a while, then go to the park to drink crates of beer and smoke weed.”
Koopmans was not impressed by the event. “We have already had a round of consultation and participation, so I wonder what we are doing here. You can also find this information online. I think it is just a sweetener. So that the municipality can later say: these are all the moments at which we have tried to provide information.”
The municipality’s decision to opt for small information meetings with one-on-one contact with officials has really taken the raging emotions out of the occasion, Maarten van Berckel told the newspaper after attending. “Smart approach. Visitors can choose their own time; they are not crammed into a room. And the information I received is also good. I am impressed by how many different angles it has been looked at.”
But he, too, remains unconvinced. “I don’t think an erotic center anywhere in the city is going to solve the problem in the Red Light District. The groups of young men who cause nuisance there, men who come for cannabis and to look at half-naked women, they don’t come here, I think.”
