Related Articles
Top Stories
May 27 2012 11:21
There's a price war raging between South Africa's cellphone networks after Cell C lowered the rates of its prepaid calls by more than 34%.
May 27 2012 13:09
The oversupply of golf estates has claimed another victim.
May 28 2012 07:53
The City of Cape Town has spent R175m running the Myciti bus service since the Soccer World Cup compared to an income of R35m, a report says.
Amsterdam - Amsterdam has unveiled plans to close brothels, sex shops andmarijuana cafes in its ancient city centre as part of a major effort to drive organized crime out of the tourist haven.
The city is targeting businesses that "generate criminality,"
including gambling parlours, and the so-called "coffee shops" where marijuana is sold openly. Also targeted are peep shows, massage parlours and souvenir shops used by drug dealers for money-laundering.
"I think that the new reality will be more in line with our image as a tolerant and crazy place, rather than a free zone for criminals" Lodewijk Asscher, a city council member and one of the main proponents of the plan, said on Saturday.
The news comes just one day after Amsterdam's mayor said he would
search for loopholes in new rules laid down by the national government that would close marijuana cafes near schools citywide. The measures announced Saturday would affect about 36 coffee shops in the centre itself - a little less than 20% of the city's total.
Asscher underlined that the city centre will remain true to its
free-wheeling reputation.
Embarrassed that you came?
"It'll be a place with 200 windows (for prostitutes) and 30 coffee shops, which you can't find anywhere else in the world - very exciting, but also with cultural attractions," he said. "And you won't have to be embarrassed to say you came."
Under the plan announced Saturday, Amsterdam will spend $38m to $51m to bring hotels, restaurants, art galleries and boutiques to the center. It will also build new underground parking areas.
Amsterdam already had plans to close many brothels and some coffee shops, but plans announced on Saturday go further.
Asscher said the city would reshape the area, using zoning rules,
buying out businesses and offering assistance to upgrade stores. The city has shut brothels and sex clubs in the past by relying on a law allowing the closure of businesses with bookkeeping irregularities.
Prostitution will be allowed only in two areas in the district -
notably De Wallen, a web of streets and alleys around the city's medieval retaining dam walls. The area has been a centre of
prostitution since before the city's golden shipping age in the 1600s.
Prostitution was legalised in the Netherlands in 2000, formalising a long-standing tolerance policy.
Marijuana is technically illegal in the Netherlands, but prosecutors won't press charges for possession of small amounts. Coffee shops are able to sell it openly.
- Sapa