Articles with the Tag War on Fun

Fewer Brits in Amsterdam

Amsterdam, Dutch politics, economic crisis
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With some two to three million unemployed already in the UK there were always going to be fewer people taking their stagnight to Amsterdam, but the ongoing war on fun cannot help. For years now the Amsterdam city council has tried to attract a higher class of tourists, wanting to present the city as one of culture and musea rather than of hookers and coffeeshops. So far this has met with little succes, but the city has managed to alienate many of the traditional visitors. What Amsterdam has been aiming at is the high value tourist, who wants to stay in a nice hotel and eat in expensive restaurants after a day of visiting the Rijksmuseum or van Gogh museum and browsing through quaint little antique or fashion shops. To make room for those tourists the city council has been on a crusade against the traditional attractions of Amsterdam: the Red Light district, the coffeeshops and the whole infrastructure of backpacker hotels and kebab shops.

To me this strategy never made sense other than as an expression of misplaced snobbery, as Amsterdam, nice town that is, really has little to offer this kind of tourist cannot find anywhere else and better. You want culture, high end shopping and fine dining? Why go to Amsterdam if you can go to Paris, or London, or Barcelona, or Vienna or Moscow even, or…

Sure, there are plenty of other party towns in Europe as well; Prague or Riga for example, which also attract a lot of British tourists out on a stag do or hen weekend. But Amsterdam is unique in that you could party safely here: do a bit of harmless experimenting with drugs or visit a live sexshow without fear of the police. Especially the coffeeshop gave Amsterdam its reputation as a city where everything goes. For all the foreign politicians who railed about it there were hundred of young people who wanted to come over. But no more. Tourism is flagging, the Brits are staying home or moving on to cities that do appreciate them. In hindsight, putting mayor Job Cohen on UK television warning boozing Brits to stay away might not have been the smartest idea…

A stunning blow for democracy

Dutch politics
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At the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve a blow was struck for direct democracy in the Netherlands, as the law on citizen initiatives was changed to allow not just ordinary signatures, but also digital ones. In our 24/7 internet ready world this is probably a good thing, even if every IT professional reading this winces at the though of how easy it is to abuse such a system. The citizen initiative, a way to force parliament to put any subject enough people feel strongly about on its agenda, has never been easier to initiate, a powerful weapon for the common voter to put their stamp on our democracy.

The 64,000 dollar question now was which burning issue would be brought to the attention of our representatives. Would the first digital initiative be about the credit crunch perhaps, or about the dire state of the world climate, or would somebody use it to bring the plight of Gaza under the eyes of parliament?

Sadly, No. The first digital citizen initiative has been used for a proposal to ban fireworks…

So, with this great democratic leap forward, what do citizens elect to do with their new found power and responsibility? Why, declare their support for the War on Fun of course! The first digital Citizen’s Initiative is here, and it’s about fireworks. The citizens, led by Green Party city council member and sour puss David Rietveld, want it outlawed. To be precise, they demand that only professionals are allowed to light fireworks on New Year’s Eve, an activity often shared between dads and their sons.

As is typical for this time, something that is clearly wrong and illegal is taken and glued to something that is fun, yet irritating to some. In this case, the New Year’s celebrations are a signal to a very few troublemakers to start burning cars and houses. And so the David Rietvelds of this world figure that it is clearly the fireworks that are at fault, not the troublemakers — who in my opionion won’t be hindered by fireworks-banning legislation in the first place, and if they did would just find other ways to be dorks.

Welcome to the War on Fun. So much more important than anything else happening in the world.

Sucking the fun out of Holland

Amsterdam, Dutch politics
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Apropos of my post on the predicted end of the coffeeshop by 2010 comes this interesting summation of all the nanny state measures that have been implemented or proposed in the past year or so. IT comes from a Llamasoft message board of all places and it’s far from complete, but it gives a good overview of the current moral climate in the Netherlands.

You may not believe it when you only know Amsterdam by reputation, but there’s a strong puritanical streak in the Dutch character as well as a long tradition of tolerance, and the pendulum has swung towards puritanism again. The people in power this last half decade have all been Mrs Grundys at heart, wanting to force their ideas of what’s right and proper on the rest of us. As with most of their ilk, they’re not so much concerned here with morality as with propriety. They’re less concerned that e.g. closing down legal brothels will drive prostitution back into the underworld with al the dangers that go with it (sex slavery, increased risk of STDs, undsoweiter) as they are with the idea that the Red Light district is an eyesore and would be much better if it was filled with trendy fashion boutiques and artist workplaces… It’s this attitude that has led to the vertrutting, the disney-fication of Amsterdam.

Brewery ‘t IJ is saved …for now

Amsterdam, beer, Oh Those Crazy Cloggies
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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: brewery ‘t IJ to close?

Amsterdam, beer, Dutch politics, Oh Those Crazy Cloggies
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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.)