Renewing the Districts

Due several regulations of the Amsterdam government, the Amsterdam Red Light District will be renewed and brought more together somewhere else in Amsterdam around 2026.

At the main district, “de Wallen”, one-third of the brothel-windows is closed now. In The ‘Small Wallen-part’, around coffeeshop ‘The Bulldog’, is fully closed already. That means that the windows at the St. Annenstraat, St. Annendwarsstraat, Dollebegijnensteeg, Trompettersteeg, Goldbergersteeg and Betlemsteeg, the indoor walkthrough ‘La Vie en Rose’ included, are closed. At the Oudekerksplein are still some windows open but these will disappear too. The main RLD will be, for as long as it last, Oudezijds Achterburgwal with several alley’s. Later this year and the next years the complete operation should be done and the remaining sexworkers at the district has to move to another place in Amsterdam where a ‘safe place to work’ for every sexworker will be created. No more loverboys who forces girls to work here, no more human trafficking, no more ‘money laundering’ and no more drugsdealers. They tried something like this before in the Main District in 2017 with ‘My Red Light’, 14 ‘windows’ brothels. Unfortunately ‘My Red Light’ went bankrupt during the Corona-lockdown. So a new plan has to be made. Moving the Main District to a huge building somewhere else in Amsterdam (North, Docklands or South, Zuidas) is the wish of the mayor & alderman. There are stil ± 250 windows open at the Main Red light Districts with ± 400 (legal) sexworkers every day. The brothel-windows closes at 03:00 h. during the weekend.

The ‘Singel-district’ is cut down to just a few streets (Oude Nieuwstraat/Singel/Spuistraat & a few alley’s), several windows has been bought here already and closed too. The closing of windows in these districts will continue until almost all these ‘Red Lights’ are extinguished.

At  the ‘Pijp-district’, for now, nothing will change. The 40 windows will remain open, nothing seems to change this for the next years.

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Coffeeshops/Smoke Cannabis

If you come to Amsterdam to smoke weed at a coffeeshop remember, the cannabis is much stronger in Amsterdam then you’ve smoked before. It will take a while you feel something but believe me, you will feel something! Too much smoked and you, or a friend, have a breakdown? Eat sugar like candy, Cola (not zero!), Red Bull or other softdrinks with sugar. Don’t use any alcohol, beer/wine/spirits, when you blow. the effect becomes very intense and your body could protest strongly.

Since May 2023 it’s forbidden to smoke cannabis in the streets of the main district. Caught? € 100.- is the fine. You can blow your brains out at one of the coffeeshops but not in the streets, alley’s, canals of squares anymore. Don’t smoke at a terrace from a normal café/bar, it’s prohibited too at the main district.

 

Bars & Restaurants

Bars have to close at 02:00 h. and no entrance for new customers can’t come in after 01:00 h. Use beer/wine/spirits securely, drunken people may end at a police station, sleeping in a cell and be fined. In the Main District it’s not allowed to drink any alcohol drink at the streets. Only at the terraces and in the bars it’s allowed to drink alcohol. Standing at a terrace with a glass in your hand can make the bar will lose their authorisations and have to close-down. The Sextheaters has to close at 02:00 as well, the last group will enter the theatre at 01:00 h. The shops closes at 22:00 h. and shops who sell alcoholic drinks has to stop selling it at 16:00 h. so no alcohol drinks can be brought to the Main District.

It looks the government finally made her dream come true. But will the tourists thinks the same about this?

Enjoy your stay in Amsterdam. Kind Regards, Webby.

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Report Kwetsbaar Beroep (Fragile Job)


There has been research about the effect of the closing down windows at 1012 and all the effects for the prostitution in the city. It’s called “Kwetsbaar Beroep” – Fragile Job-

The result of the examination is:Click here for more!
The policy as started is negative for the whole prostitution branch but the elderman will continue the project 1012 and close down windows. The Mayor, Van der Laan, called the report ‘convincing’ but says the negative effect for shutting down prostitution-windows at the workers is “weakly solid”.

There is no body of evidence that all the prostitutes are  ‘white slaves’ (forced workers) but at some points it ‘burns’.
But as said; no proof. If it’s proofed the window will be closed and the license will be rejected.
It’s hard for the goverment to get into the ‘forced workers circuit’. The chain is too long.
In the report is written: “Probably a cell in Bulgary or Romania stimulates (forces?) a women to work in the prostitution, another cell will do the transportation to Holland and another cell in Holland will do the paperwork, housing and renting the window for the girls.”  It’s hard to get in this world for the police.

Read more at the report!

In the report are a lot of figures about prostitution. The whole report can be downloaded here (pdf-alert!) but only in Dutch!