Sometimes putting the spotlight of publicity on bureaucracies doing deeply stupid things works, as the Amsterdam city council has decided to review its policy against people drinking alcohol on pub terraces whilst standing. For some reason this idea that people were drinking beer without sitting down for it was deeply offensive to the numbnuts of stadsdeel centrum especially, which led to a fine for Brewery ‘t IJ, one of the places where you least expect alcohol related trouble. Now the city has, while not abandoning this policy, chosen to be much more casual about enforcing it. Which is just as well what with the ban on smoking in pubs that came into force last July. Hopefully this relaxation of the law will mean no more warnings for the pub, which otherwise might have to close.
beer
Amsterdam: brewery ‘t IJ to close?
Brewery ‘t IJ is a small local Amsterdam beer brewer-cum pub where they still brew beer for the love of it. Founded in 1985 it has become one of the best small brewers in the Netherlands, while the pub is mellow and popular with serious beer fans as well as the more casual drinker. No wonder then that the Amsterdam city council is trying to shut it down. And why are they trying to close ‘t IJ down? Not because its customers are causing trouble, not because there are fistfights every night or lots of drunken people crawling home all hours of the night (a bit difficult as the pub is only open from three in the afternoon untill eight in the evening), not even because people are smoking in the pub . Nothing of that is going on, so why is Amsterdam city council (or rather, the Stadsdeel Centrum sub-council, a bigger collection of NIMBYes and prigs not seen in this country) trying to shut down Brewery ‘t IJ
Because their customers are drinking their beer outside, on the terraces, — are you ready — standing up!
Yes, really. It its verboten to drink while standing up, even though you’re doing so on licensed premises. And they’re actually checking up on this as well, with ‘t IJ having gotten two warnings already. Next time it will be a fivehundred euro fine, then a thousand euro one and if that doesn’t
help, the pub will have to shut down for a week. Worse, any warnings on file will remain there for two years. The reason for this policy? Gods know, nobody else does.
As the AT5 news report shows, try and explain this to your customers, especially when half or more are from outside Amsterdam and not used to the petty rule lawyering of Stadsdeel Centrum, which has also been known to ban rainbow flags as “intrusive advertising”. What sane person would suspect drinking standing up, on the pub terrace would be a problem?
Suspicious as I am, I wonder why Stadsdeel Centrum has embarked on this policy. Is it just another example of the way they try to bully everything out of the city centre that doesn’t fit their idea of a nice little suburbanised Amsterdam, a sort of Vienna-lite but without the charm? Or is theresomething more sinister going on?
(Found at Komma punt Log.)