Amsterdam closing shop

[olllllo]

Get there while you can.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/109373

Arguing that too many brothels and sex bars are linked to criminality, the authorities plan to all but erase the Red Light District.

Amsterdam's mayor, Job Cohen, and his aldermen have demonstrated little nostalgia for the district, which has been the world's most famous home of sexual permissiveness since the 15th century. They first unveiled the plan to close it in December; last month they revoked the licenses of two widely known sex venues, the Casa Rosso and the Banana Bar.

Over the last few years the Netherlands has adopted a stricter policy on selling marijuana, and a ban on hallucinogenic mushrooms is slated to go into effect later this year.

 

[malkore]

Noooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!

 

[DeathBrewer]

weak. i'm supposed to go there later this year. and i was going to have lots of sex. (ok, not really, but i was planning on visiting a coffee shop or two)

 

[homebrewer_99]

FYI...Amsterdam is not the only city in the Netherlands with coffee shops...

 

[Fingers]

Spain is the new Netherlands.

 

[sudsmonkey]

That's just un-Dutch of them! They're gonna BE in Dutch over this one.

Marking Amsterdam off my list of places to visit. Maybe Bangkok.

 

[BierMuncher]

Can you still get a doob?

 

[Brew Runner]

Can you still get a doob?

That was the first thing to cross my mind....

 

[Fingers]

Here you go.

 

[HenryHill]

The pendulum swings both ways-eventually...generally too far in each direction-then over-correction...

 

[EvilTOJ]

There's two things that I can't stand. Intolerance of other cultures, and the Dutch.

 

[Orfy]

Been and done it.
For some reason Amsterdam always seems a good place to hold conferences.
We have a new office 30 miles from there.

 

[ShortSnoutBrewing]

Don't care about the sex...just give me the sticky green.....

 

[shafferpilot]

Wasn't there some talk of the "slippery slope of lawmaking" recently?? I hope the naysayers are paying attention!

 

[mrfocus]

Good thing I went there in November 2006.

Anyways, I honestly don't think it's really going to happen to the extent they're talking about, cause they really have freedom and open-mindness instilled into them as a people. Actually, if I remember my Political philosophy class well, many of the first immigrants to the USA passed through dutch harbors, and from there they saw the freedom which the locals cherished and decided they wanted to do much the same for with their new country.

 

[beergears]

A few years ago, a friend told me the local produce growers had shifted their greenhouse production so much, veggies became more expensive at the grocery store...!

 

[Nerro]

Well, that just means that only every other city and reasonably large town still has plenty of coffeeshops to make do.

 

[landhoney]

I've been, but did not partake of the sex or the drugs. My roommate in college in Germany visited the brothels when he was there on his own. He didn't tell his girlfriend in America, but didn't consider it cheating because it obviously wasn't a relationship