Maastricht Keeps the Sticky Icky for Itself, Bans Foreign Tourists from Weed Cafes
We're not going to say "I told you so," but we kind of did back in May when Holland first announced plans to possibly close "coffee shops" to tourists after crime rose. Now, from this last Saturday, the hammer has dropped and foreign tourists are not permitted in the coffee shops of Holland's southernmost city of Maastricht.
There are exceptions: Germans and Belgians are still welcome, but no Americans or Italians or English or French or...we could continue but you get the point. And if you are German or Belgian, then be prepared to show your passport and allow the coffee shop to retain your identity information for up to two days, even if you're only in the shop to smoke weed for fifteen minutes.
Here's where it gets weird: this is not a legal ban, as in the tourists aren't going to be kept out of the shops by police because it is not a law but an agreement by the coffee shops of Maastricht to do this to curb crime and cut down on the visitors turning the city's quaint streets into riotous bottlenecks in the particularly coffee shop-heavy areas.
Of course tourist dollars will be lost by this, but it's a risk the city is willing to take to prevent further crime. And of course the rest of the country will be watching as Amsterdam ponders a similar ban.
[Photo: Jaunted]
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