Dutch plan to shift coffeeshops worries neighbors
Sitting among the mellow smokers in a coffeeshop in Maastricht it is easy to forget that a plan to relocate half of the cannabis-selling outlets to the city limits has aroused fury.
The southern Dutch city has been trying for five years to push seven shops to three new “coffee corners” at its northern, western and southern borders.
The marijuana equivalent of out-of-town shopping malls would serve the 1.5 to 2 million people who pour into the city each year in search of a powerful puff.
Neighboring Belgian districts and the Dutch community of Eijsden, enraged by the prospect of coffeeshops on their doorsteps, forced Maastricht to back down after winning a legal challenge last month.
The Dutch city has now put forward a watered-down proposal to place two coffeeshops in a single “coffee corner” at its southern edge for a trial period of three years. Its neighbors are still not happy.
“We see reckless driving, car theft… We already have the highest level of crime of any countryside district in Belgium and 95 percent of it is due to drugs,” said Huub Broers, mayor of the Belgian district of Voeren, just south of Maastricht.
About 80 percent of the city’s coffeeshop customers are foreign — of which 60 percent come from Belgium and the rest from France and Germany.
Read the rest of the article: Reuters, 21 April 2008
Related article on Crossroads: Drug tourism in Maastricht – what is all the fuss about?
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