PalenQ

Travel article in local paper this weekend said that Amsterdam officials, though they are downsizing the city's infamous Red-Light District, have decided to leave 200 red-lit picture windows

and also it an attempt to tone down its reputation for cannabis-selling coffeehouses, will do away with most of these but leave 30 open (down from several hundred not long ago)

So future tourists will be able to savor (or decry) these two industries that have made Amsterdamned so notorious.

The gentrification of Amsterdam continues

Cholmondley_Warner

And that's exactly why they're doing it. They're fed up with potless Brits, Aussies, Paddies etc clogging up the city and spending no money.

They want richer older tourists - hence the "clean up"

mr_go

Those are going to be 230 highly coveted (and amazingly expensive) leases.

PalenQ

<potless Brits>

No the Brits who flock here on cheap flights score pot the first thing.

Unless you meant Brits that did not have a pot to piss in

scatcat

Thanks Pal for such quick wit-I needed a laugh.

hetismij

Actually C-W it is because of the links to organised crime, and the general puritanisation of the Netherlands under the current gov't. Sorry.

PalenQ

Hetismij - i do however the Mayor of Amsterdamned some months ago saying - about the getting rid of the red-light district that he wanted to replace the British lager lout tourists, who like C W said, spend little except on sex and booze and pot, with more well-heeled and better behaved tourists. Those were his words.

Travelnut

"..more well-heeled and better behaved tourists.."

- - but even some of those like to visit a 'coffee house' now and then 8-)

icithecat

Exactly PQ and travelnut.
Next thing is to ban alcohol sales, since only 'lager louts' like to drink.

willit

I was in Amsterdam in October - I really liked the city.

It was around 2pm on a Saturday in the red light district. The several groups of young British men who had obviously been drinking since the early hours seemed to be on a stag weekend. They were milling about, leering at the women in the windows, and making suggestive remarks to I presume the groom to be.

Suddenly a voice from the back cried - "'ang on lads, United are on the telly" - Almost instantly the street emptied. Who needs tittilation when you have footie ?

Cholmondley_Warner

90% of people who fall in the canals in HamsterJam are British. I am proud of this.

PalenQ

200 redlight windows indeed does not sound like doing away with the Redlight District - and what would happen if an English soccer team can to play AJAX

Germany for the World Cup recently had to import many prostitutes to serve the demand.

Maybe they could have inflatable cubby holes?