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.
Amsterdam
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.)
Dutch smoking ban also hits coffeeshops
They’re often the main reason y’all want to visit Amsterdam: to gawk at the hookers in the Red Light District and to light up a fat old blunt in one of the coffeeshops. Unfortunately your chances to do so are diminishing steadily, as the Amsterdam city council is busy “cleaning up” the Red Light district by buying up properties and chasing away the prostitutes, while from July 1st there will be a nation wide smoking ban for the catering industry. Including coffeeshops.
Which may sound odd, because if there’s one place you go to smoke something, it’s a coffeeshop, but than the law’s intention isn’t to harass smokers (smokers may disagree about this), but to protect workers in the catering industry, just like workers in other industries are protected from their smoking co-workers. Coffeeshop or not, standing in secondhand tobacco smoke for eight hours or longer doesn’t do much for your health. It seems absurd at first, but since we already acknowledge the dangers of secondhand smoke in other industries, why should coffeeshops be exempt? Saying that the employees had a choice not to work in a coffeeshop isn’t good enough; there’s a reason governments make worker protection mandatory. If they don’t, history shows that workers have no protection and no choice but to accept this.
So, smoke ’em if you got them, because tomorrow you will have to do so outside.
Remembering the Nakba
On May 14th it will be exactly sixty years ago that the state of Israel was founded. A moment of celebration for the Israelis, but for the original Palestinian population of the country that day in 1948 was the start for a gigantic humanitarian tragedy: the Nakba, or catastrophe.
The Dutch Tropical Museum now has put up an exhibition on the Nakba, showing the eyewitnesses testimonials of those Palestinians caught up in it. Much of the video material used in this exhibition originated with the Nakba Archive, an international attempt to document and research the experiences of the first generation of Palestinian refugees from what would become Israel. This is important, because this generation is slowly dying of old age and this is the last opportunity to document their stories. The exhibition itself is also important, because the story of the Nakba is little known in the Netherlands, whose sympathies traditionally lie with Israel rather than the Palestinians. That an exhibition on such an important aspect of Palestinian history can now be shown in such a renowned museum with none of the usual zionist outcry is a good sign
Amsterdam bans dirty cars
You may not have noticed if you visited our fair city from London or New York, but Amsterdam is incredibly dirty and polluted. Just run your finger round the edge of any building in the centre of town (you know, like your mother proably used to do with the top of the cupboard) and it comes away covered in a mixture of dirt, dust and pollution. The main cause of this? Traffic. Amsterdam is a small, compact city with a lot of offices and a lot of people commuting into the city by car. For several years now air quality in the city has worsened, to the effect that living here can actually reduce your life expectancy.
No wonder than that the city council has been looking for ways to improve air quality, especially since several prestigious building projects had to be suspended last year because of pollution concerns. Yesterday the council presented the measures it wants to take and it seems they’re going for the carrot and stick method, by rewarding owners of more environmentally friendly cars and punishing polluters. From the end of next year the most polluting classes of car will be banned from Amsterdam. Any cars older than 1992 will be banned, while diesel cars without smog filters will also be banned. However, if your car is clean, your arking license will be cheaper. At the same time the council is allocating more money for bicycle lanes and to promote biking in general.
Great news, though personally I wouldn’t mind seeing the car disappear completely, at least from the centre of town. The old Medieval heart of the city just isn’t built for cars.