Amsterdam will ban tourists and locals from smoking cannabis on the streets of the Red Light District later this year, as the city council begins its campaign to deter ‘certain types’ of visitors to the popular destination.

The new regulations will come into place the middle of May, with the council also announcing that bars and restaurants will have to close by 2am on Fridays and Saturdays, and no new visitors would be allowed into the old city district after 1am.

The moves are part of a process that has been titled ‘Stay Away’, a campaign that aims to reclaim the city for locals, improving their home lives which they say are blighted by disruption caused by a certain element that visits the city for drugs, alcohol and sex purposes.

The current law includes a “toleration policy” allowing coffee shops to sell cannabis under strict conditions, but it remains a criminal offence to possess or deal drugs in the Netherlands. Many visit the city to partake in cannabis use in the cafes, but that regularly spills out into the streets in the tourist hotspots, with locals complaining that it is an attraction to street dealers, with drug and alcohol use driving up the crime rate.  

The sale of alcohol from shops, off-licences and cafes in the Red Light District is banned from Thursday to Sunday after 4pm, with the council now requesting that vendors remove alcohol from their shopfronts during that time.