First stop on the Thursday, as always in recent trips, was utopia. I have said before how much I rate this place and this trip was no exception. This was the day of the court case (regarding opening hours) and when I returned late afternoon was told the news that the coffeeshops had lost and from the next day would be forced to shut their doors until 6pm. Everyone was understandably shocked and I was genuinely gutted along with the staff as I think everyone thought the judge would see the new laws were ridiculous. I won't go off again about just how ridiculous they are, as ive done so before more than once but it is peoples livelihoods that are being fucked with by rules that make little sense, and there are many more sensible alternatives if the real issue is protecting schoolchildren.
I tried pretty much all the weed on the menu here and it was all very good, especially sour kush, kandydential, ice cream and of course citral.
I also spent a fair amount of time in Betty Boop, always seem to manage to strike up a friendly conversation with locals or visitors and ended up trading stories with a german and israeli fella on the first day. The budtenders are also very friendly and always have been to me over the last 10 years. Sadly, Bettys was another coffeeshop to be affected by the new opening hours and although everyone was trying to take it in their stride, it's clear that the massive loss of hours will have a big affect on the staff. How can everyone mantain a living when the coffeeshop is only open 35 hours mon-fri most weeks of the year? Even worse for Bettys is that they are in the first group of coffeeshops which will close in July this year. I will be very sad to see this place go.
The super silver haze here was excellent for the price, the sugar punch was also very good.
Stopped by Dampkring2, looked at the white buddha but it didn't look up to much so asked for a recommendation. Was pointed to the m4-amnesia at 9eu/g and it was amazing for the price. Also nice not to have the budtender automatically go for the most expensive strain on the menu, which is often the case here.
Only stopped by Grey Area once this trip, Bought the Choco Berry for 13.50eu/g which smelt nice but wasnt the best tasting and was reccomended the perfect pick at 16.50 a gram which was very nice but perhaps a push at that price. The service here is always good and has been a staple every trip but I think now the likes of utopia and voyagers have as good or better stuff and less pricey.
The Kosher Kush from voyagers was as strong as ever. Also tried the Pink Sour Grapefruit and Sour Power, both were as good as you would expect and well worth the price per gram (which i forget
)Had heard a mention on here for the blue cheese at bluebird and stopped by to grab some. It was some of the best blue cheese i've had in recent times. Better than what I can get here, thats for sure and up there with the blue cheese in Dam a few years back.
As has been discussed on here, the big Grasshopper coffeeshop is now closed. The Cafe and Steakhouse are still open though. From talking to a few budtenders the general feeling is obviously that the place was a shithole tourist trap, but it catered to a market and coupled with everything else going on at the moment everyone is wondering what/where will be next.
Stones cafe now allow weed smoking again after being smoke free the past couple of trips. I only noticed because there was actually people in there again, and the ashtrays are back on the tables. There are signs up now saying strictly no tobacco smoking. I also noticed that in Big Shots bar they were now telling people only weed could be smoked whereas before they allowed cigarettes. It's no inconvenience to me, and I guess its a response to the clampdown on the tobacco law, I would guess Big Shots have had a similar warning stones did.
Smoke list.......
Utopia-
Citral
Ice cream
Kandydential
Sour Kush
Buddhas sister
Betty Boop-
Super Silver Haze
Sugar Punch
Voyagers-
Kosher Kush
Pink Sour Grapefruit
Sour Power
Grey Area-
Choco Berry
Perfect Pick
Bluebird-
Blue cheese
Dampkring2-
m4-Amnesia
All in all, another great trip, but with a slight tinge of sadness with the new rules coming into force and seeing the impact on the staff of these coffeeshops, there seems to be a general feeling in Amsterdam that things are taking a change for the worse, and although undoubtedly there will still be plenty of coffeeshops for some time to come, the general feel of Amsterdam has changed over the last 7 or 8 years but more dramatically in recent times, and when the likes of Utopia and Betty Boop have been and gone, Amsterdam will have lost some gems.
lol