Smoker-friendly Bars Introduction

beer In continental Europe, the word café often means a bar where alcohol is available. At one time there were many cafe-coffeeshops in the Netherlands where beer and cannabis were available.

The 1995 regulations sought to separate alcohol and cannabis but existing cafe-coffeeshops were allowed to carry on selling both until 1st April 2007 when the remaining cafe-coffeeshops in Amsterdam were forced to choose between weed and alcohol. Most chose cannabis. Some also opened bars near to their coffeeshops.

Most bars object to weed smoking but there are a few exceptions and these are the smoker-friendly bars. Some are former coffeeshops that have chosen to give up selling grass but still permit smoking. Others were created specifically as smoker-friendly bars.

Example Smoker-friendly Bars

A few examples in Amsterdam:

Cafe Batavia 1920 is very close to Centraal Station plus Voyagers and Central coffeeshops. Downstairs is a cool smoker's bar with a view across the canal to Voyagers.

Kashmir Lounge was once a nice coffeeshop. After 2007 they took over Jan Piet coffeeshop across the road and gave up the coffeeshop licence for the lounge, which is now a smoker's bar.

Hill Street Blues is an ex-coffeeshop in the centre of town now operating as a smoker-friendly bar also known as Hill Street Booze.

Kadinsky Café and Barney's Uptown are across the road from their respective coffeeshops.

Sound Garden is a well established pub allowing smoking in the garden.