What are the chances of a weed ban? I can understand the RLD is gentrifying, but c'mon---the area is a total bore now compared to the 20th-century scene. The sex-tours are silly; make the sex shows affordable and have the old and young puritanical nerds giggle indoors. And why does she want to prevent me from buying weed in de Pijp?---it's neither a tourist area nor "out of control." Are there real-estate interests tossing her euros to create a "crisis?"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... t-district

I’m pretty sure she’s just kind of an idiot. She constantly talks about respecting sex workers and wants to get rid of all the tourists in the area because they’re disrespectful to the girls (which they are), but then where do the girls’ customers come from? It’s shooting the patient to cure their cancer. The girls don’t want the tourists gone, that’s where their money comes from, they just don’t want the tour groups and assholes taking pictures of them. As for the weed ban, it just means the tourists will be buying it from illegal street dealers, or enterprising Dutch will start a service where they buy for tourists and deliver it to them or something. In any case, it won’t change anything for the better.

A smarter thing to do would be to just increase the police presence in the area (maybe closing the precinct in De Wallen wasn’t such a smart idea), and make sure they’re actually doing their job and enforcing the rules. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen some dickhead tourist acting a fool right in front of a police officer or one of those useless guides and nothing at all was done about it. Enforce the photography ban in the area, stop idiots from driving or riding bikes or mopeds through De Wallen, and actually do something when someone is harassing the ladies or pissing everywhere, or vandalizing things, or whatever else the morons do. You’re not gonna legislate away all the city’s problems and she’s gonna have a lot of pissed off business owners to deal with when they’re not getting business anymore because she’s chased away all the tourists.

It seems the article has been updated and corrected - they were talking about De Wallen but named it incorrectly.

They are on the right track with the banning of those fecking organised tours, but banning weed for foreigners? I don't even smoke anymore, haven't for years, but that shit fills me with sadness. It feels like this idea comes up once every decade or so lol

Weed smokers are not the issue here, nor is the "increasingly sleazy" RLD - its cleaner and more gentrified now than it's ever been!

I've always considered myself a snowflake lefty, but there seems to be a new breed of lefty folk which are just namby pampy "ban everything" fragile Guardian reading (lol) "you can't say that" mongoloids. Almost as bad as the conservative right! /rantover haha

this channel is from a organisation called - Red Light United. it was formed by the girls for the girls.

tours - yes, but no photos. it should be some regulations for photos.

first video from the left, but I recommend all material. in my opinion very good information and alot of "facts".

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqIbSg ... GLmbYxMKnw

I agree entirely. I’m a self-identified classical liberal and frankly, these regressive “cancel culture” leftists is why Trump won and populism is spreading across the globe. This nonsense needs to stop.

On topic: it was never the weed smokers (potheads are lazy, not destructive), or the mongerers causing problems in De Wallen. It was the hen/stag parties, the bar crawls, the street dealers, the drunk assholes (mostly brits), and the soccer (I’m from Canada, don’t kill me!) hooligans. Mongerers don’t cause shit, we want to be incognito, drawing attention to ourselves by making a scene would be counterproductive. If anything, they should be shutting down bars in De Wallen, not coffee shops. I mean, they shouldn’t do either, but the drunks are the ones causing all the trouble.

Also, maybe if you move to De Wallen, a place known for being rowdy and loud for literally hundreds of years, don’t complain that it’s too loud and rowdy. Like, I feel for the people who live there, the tourists must make things insufferable, but they knew what they were getting into. Don’t try to ban everything just because you fucked up and assumed you’d be able to live with the noise and general cadology.

I remember the RLD was a zoo back in the 1990s---Pill Bridge, rowdy gangs of drunks, freelance hookers with HIV being pimped out by their junkie boyfriends, squatter wars, endless beggars---some threatening. I also rember the area as being vibrant, less yuppie/more bohemian, and the police being decent social workers who tried to determine how to help someone in bad shape without starting an incident.

I think real-estate interests are pulling her chain and filling her bank account. They're housing yuppies there now at decent profits. For them, why not more?---there's never enough for the rich. Hell, they already broke the RLD; I don't even bother checking it out anymore on some trips.

The weed thing is just insane. Yeah, some jackoffs smoke outside the crappy touristy Bulldog in Leidesplein, but that whole area is a bar/weed/bad-food tourist zone.

I'm glad I'm old. I've seen Times Square die a horrible death. Don't want that for Amsterdam.

There is definitely a new puritanism that has swept the West in recent decades. I mean, you could feel it in the 1990s compared to the stories that were told about the 70-80s, but it has since gone much further. Middle class feminists like the mayor pay lip service to the idea that sex is great, women should be free to choose, etc etc, but IRL their body language just screams discomfort at a place where drugs and sex are easy to find. I think Amsterdam is doomed to follow in the footsteps of other cities which have gentrified and then done away with the original "shameful" trades that got them their money. OTOH, I was in Amsterdam in October and annoyed at how many drunken idiots were stumbling around goggle-eyed. I was much happier mongering in the daytime than I was at night as a result.

Amsterdam is in a tough position , tourism is probably a very big part of its income . Over the years the city was taken over by a lot. Of organized crime. Several years ago the Angels controlled a lot of the RLD and area around it . They even went so far as to blow up a council mans home. This caused a crackdown on the Angels . Good or bad if you stay out of the Angels world they don’t bother you. .
This was major because the Angel that did this more or less went rogue. In doing this it activated the conservatives in the local government. All kind of stuff came out about sex trafficking.

Now where the local government could find a member of organized crime owned a piece of real estate they harassed them or found a crime and took the real estate. The city council had to find legit businesses to move into the real estate . First came the jackass Pakistani and Indian souvineer shops . Some are legit some aren’t , this became another group of organized criminals. Some of these much worse then the Angels.

A very good friend of mine from India has lived in Amsterdam for 40 years he explained he paid high taxes so these new businesses , the souvenir shops could occupy these store fronts. Now as this has been a failure they are trying to let local artists have the store fronts rent free. He owns a B&B and laundromat . Last fall he said if business does not get better he is moving to Spain. But it could be difficult to sell because some businesses get storefronts rent free.

The RLD of Amsterdam has had public officials family working in the RLD commonly these family members were moved to the outlying little towns. Council members not happy somewhat embarrassed ..so they had a reason to see the RLD closed

I think public officials in Amsterdam are in an internal fight . Both sides have a vision and neither can move forward. We have friends he is a judge in Amsterdam he hates the crime but claims in the older days they could control the crime , they knew the criminals , it is now different. One side wants to make the Centrum an uppity district for young professionals to live and raise families . Another group wants a softer older days atmosphere good for tourism.

Remember these people who we call conservatives or right leaning Like to have fun . They just want a safe controllable environment. These people are moral but not stupid and they must find the correct path for Amsterdam to remain a tourist destination and not become a city Controlled by criminals.

I recently watch HBO's The Deuce and I drew massive, massive parallels with what was going on in New York through the 70s and 80s with Amsterdam, albeit at a much slower or contested rate. I'm sure this is happening with lots of similar areas around the world.

I've never been to New York, but the whole sterilisation of Times Square seems incredibly sad to me. That being said, I've heard that in the ol' days it was a hellhole - depends who you speak to I guess. :D

Not really.

Prostitution was never legal in NYC. There were no window girls. "Massage Parlors," which were really full-service for $10 to $20/15 minutes in the 1970s, might be open one day, closed down by the cops the next. You had no rights and you'd be nuts to complain---they were either run by the Mob or crooked cops. There were some surreal set-ups to make the places look like sex wasn't available---actual massage tables, tents, shoe-shine stands in which you were serviced seated on metal chairs. As for the various small, affordable apartment bordellos---a much better and more expensive scene that were numerous until the mid-90s---well, they'd be great one night, shut down the next.

Peep Shows survived due to numerous First Amendment lawsuits. Most were not regulated early on; there was child porn and beastiality for 25 cents a minutes on view until a crackdown in 1977 or so. One or two peep shows offered "no windows" for touching and licking; the most famous one closed a quarter-century ago. There were rumours you could get laid "upstairs" at Show World (RIP), but I saw no indication of that. Live Sex shows on stage or through a window was permitted until 1990 or so.

So Times Sq. was, "Look. But Don't Fuck."

Girls were either putrid local dregs, depressed Minnesota Strip runaways, immigrants, and some college gals.

I brought up "tool for the rich" because The New York Times is a tool for the rich. They owned a ton of property in Times Sq. They ran horror stories about Times Sq daily without disclosing these "awful things" happened in property they owned and rented out. Moral Panic! Save Our City!

You know the rest.

Times Square was a cesspool from 1970--1990, I guess, but it was also electric. Now it's literally Mickey Mouse.

As for The Deuce, I've avoided it, despite walking past places they shoot at. My guess is they got 99% wrong---do they pull "whores with hearts of gold" vomit?

Femke Halmsma is Green Party.
Many of the things that she does that seem economically odd are environmentally motivated.
Tourism isn't very green.
There is also a huge housing crunch. Not surprising, as the costs to build to the green standard are very high.
Social housing is in particularly short supply. Rents are capped, and little building has gone on the last few years, despite soaring demand. There is an element in the city council that would like tourist housing forced back onto the market.
We will see how this all goes.
It looks like tourist destinations are going to get a 2-3 month experiment in what things might work like without tourists.
I expect FIERCE competition for the recovery of tourists this summer.


Weasel