Christ are we doing this again? Tourist ban??

[Ghost]

With you there buddy

If only we could go back to the early 90's when the city was still a little bit lawless and it had that buzz around town when you was on a stroll, the prices where still bang on point on the smoke front and there was some right characters working in the shops then, some of them people i still call friends to this day They was some good times

You're old enough to have been in Amsterdam in the 90's as an (young) adult?

Was thinking the same, have only met the ghost once, but he didn't look all that aged

You are all to kind

Yeah it is true i was there dodging the push bikes and trams, keeping an eye out for the pickpockets, swerving the 'pssst pssst' dealers on every corner I was a young excited adult back then when i emerged from Central Station in to the Buzz of the Dam for the 1st time with Guilders in my pocket and no digs booked with my mate and we proceeded to make our way to Rasta Baby to book an apartment for our 3 day trip and then proceeded on our way to our 1st coffeeshop which was Picasso's Green when they had a Brown shop also on the opposite side of the road. Our eye's were bigger than our lungs back then when we saw the menu for the 1st time and we ordered up a g of stinky Northern Lights{still one of the strongest smokes i have ever had} and a g of Big Bud and we shared them between us, before stumbling down the spiral stairs and out of the door for a good stroll around town taking in all the new sites and smells that were around at the time and which made me fall in love with the city:D and has kept me coming back ever since, although i am mostly flying solo now

[Willjay]

You're old enough to have been in Amsterdam in the 90's as an (young) adult?

Was thinking the same, have only met the ghost once, but he didn't look all that aged

You are all to kind

Yeah it is true i was there dodging the push bikes and trams, keeping an eye out for the pickpockets, swerving the 'pssst pssst' dealers on every corner I was a young excited adult back then when i emerged from Central Station in to the Buzz of the Dam for the 1st time with Guilders in my pocket and no digs booked with my mate and we proceeded to make our way to Rasta Baby to book an apartment for our 3 day trip and then proceeded on our way to our 1st coffeeshop which was Picasso's Green when they had a Brown shop also on the opposite side of the road. Our eye's were bigger than our lungs back then when we saw the menu for the 1st time and we ordered up a g of stinky Northern Lights{still one of the strongest smokes i have ever had} and a g of Big Bud and we shared them between us, before stumbling down the spiral stairs and out of the door for a good stroll around town taking in all the new sites and smells that were around at the time and which made me fall in love with the city:D and has kept me coming back ever since, although i am mostly flying solo now

never met you Ghost, that I know of but on our first trip to Amsterdam in 97 our first smoke was Northern Lights, at the BlueBird the freedom we felt from that trip inspired us to get active in the legalization movement here in the states

[Ghost]

Was thinking the same, have only met the ghost once, but he didn't look all that aged

You are all to kind

Yeah it is true i was there dodging the push bikes and trams, keeping an eye out for the pickpockets, swerving the 'pssst pssst' dealers on every corner I was a young excited adult back then when i emerged from Central Station in to the Buzz of the Dam for the 1st time with Guilders in my pocket and no digs booked with my mate and we proceeded to make our way to Rasta Baby to book an apartment for our 3 day trip and then proceeded on our way to our 1st coffeeshop which was Picasso's Green when they had a Brown shop also on the opposite side of the road. Our eye's were bigger than our lungs back then when we saw the menu for the 1st time and we ordered up a g of stinky Northern Lights{still one of the strongest smokes i have ever had} and a g of Big Bud and we shared them between us, before stumbling down the spiral stairs and out of the door for a good stroll around town taking in all the new sites and smells that were around at the time and which made me fall in love with the city:D and has kept me coming back ever since, although i am mostly flying solo now

never met you Ghost, that I know of but on our first trip to Amsterdam in 97 our first smoke was Northern Lights, at the BlueBird the freedom we felt from that trip inspired us to get active in the legalization movement here in the states

Hi @Willjay, you never know we may have crossed paths and not known it if we were in town at the same time The Northern when it 1st came on to the scene was something special to us as we had not had anything like it back then, we were used to smoking some sort of imported 'brick weed' which was always full of seeds and sticks and stems or some sort of imported Hash which was always hit 'n' miss so entering a coffeeshop and being given a Juicy nugget of Northy which was reasonably trimmed was Amazing to us and we felt blessed to be here. I left Amsterdam that trip with a packet of Northern Lights seeds hidden in my jeans and then there begins another chapter Lets hope our paths may cross for a smoke sometime

[worldcitizen1723]

Ahhh the 90’s. That was when I too fell in love with Amsterdam. Don’t remember my first smoke, but back in the day, it was Eidelweiss at Stix that was a favorite. Loved the dam, it had a similar edginess that NYC had in the 70’s, just that the city never had coffeeshops. Everything about Amsterdam in those days screamed for you to show your creative individual character it was the absolute best. It has been sad to watch it homogenize and become a ‘family friendly’ vacation destination....... and now to discriminate against tourists such as us...really heart breaking.


On the absolute other end...I do understand- I live in NYC and I know the city depends on tourists.....but without them the city is lovely. The places that were meant for residents are emptied of tourist and are wonderful...you can walk down the street without people blocking sidewalks and gawking, crowding our parks, riding bikes, not knowing where they are going and becoming hazardous to the rest of us.....it’s a hard call it’s a world with just too many people....guess the pandemic is solving that

[Tokeing tom]

Dutch government collapses in fall out from child benefit scandal - https://go.shr.lc/3ih3cVM

[Waldo Swan]

Yes sir Mr. Ghost and other gentlemen, I feel so fortunate to be an "old guy". We were so fortunate to come up in our times. Makes me feel sad for some of these younger blokes.

[RoMoney]

On the absolute other end...I do understand- I live in NYC and I know the city depends on tourists.....but without them the city is lovely. The places that were meant for residents are emptied of tourist and are wonderful...you can walk down the street without people blocking sidewalks and gawking, crowding our parks, riding bikes, not knowing where they are going and becoming hazardous to the rest of us.....it’s a hard call it’s a world with just too many people....guess the pandemic is solving that

Barcelona is the same, it's nicer without the tourists, but the place needs their money at the same time! Lets see what tourism looks like when we come out of the far side of the pandemic, it will take a few years to rebound anywhere near what it was in terms of numbers.

[worldcitizen1723]

On the absolute other end...I do understand- I live in NYC and I know the city depends on tourists.....but without them the city is lovely. The places that were meant for residents are emptied of tourist and are wonderful...you can walk down the street without people blocking sidewalks and gawking, crowding our parks, riding bikes, not knowing where they are going and becoming hazardous to the rest of us.....it’s a hard call it’s a world with just too many people....guess the pandemic is solving that

Barcelona is the same, it's nicer without the tourists, but the place needs their money at the same time! Lets see what tourism looks like when we come out of the far side of the pandemic, it will take a few years to rebound anywhere near what it was in terms of numbers.

yeah.... totally agree.

BUT here is abit of encouraginng news: https://www.at5.nl/artikelen/206719/at5 ... OvepExFue0

[Yossarian22]

On the absolute other end...I do understand- I live in NYC and I know the city depends on tourists.....but without them the city is lovely. The places that were meant for residents are emptied of tourist and are wonderful...you can walk down the street without people blocking sidewalks and gawking, crowding our parks, riding bikes, not knowing where they are going and becoming hazardous to the rest of us.....it’s a hard call it’s a world with just too many people....guess the pandemic is solving that

The thing is though that it´s really only the De Wallen area and Leidseplein/Rembrandtplein that are like that; if you go to De Pijp or the North or the East or even the Jordaan, I´ve never seen it suffocated with tourists, even in summer or school breaks.

Also, does anyone have any suggestions on people to contact besides the mayor´s office? Has anyone seen petitions? Or know of any coffeeshops or associations which are organizing to fight this ban?

It´s completely bonkers that after the coronavirus and all the havoc it´s wreaked on the city´s service and tourism industry, that the city would needlessly get rid of tens of thousands of tourists annually, who bring in tens of millions. And all because a bunch of uptight snobs seem to think that pot smokers are lazy, useless idiots (and apparently, indistinguishable from sex tourists.)

[la2019]

So this is a very optimistic take! Finally some more perspective. Gives me hope!
https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/is ... offeeshops

Fingers crossed...

[Lafe]

There is a simple fix for this. Only 21+ for both coffeeshops and alcohol.

Most of the problem drunks I see are quite young.

We all know stoners don't cause problems. But mix a young inexperienced drinker AND inexperienced stoner with some strong weed and there is your potential for a problem.

I see no reason to throw out the baby with the bath water.