Amsterdam Cleans Up
Amsterdam announced plans Saturday to close brothels, sex shops and marijuana cafés in its ancient city center as part of a major effort to drive organized crime out of the tourist haven. The city is targeting businesses that "generate criminality," including gambling parlors, and the so-called coffee shops where marijuana is openly sold. Also targeted are peep shows, massage parlors and souvenir shops used by drug dealers for money-laundering.
"I think that the new reality will be more in line with our image as a tolerant and crazy place, rather than a free zone for criminals" said Lodewijk Asscher, a city council member and one of the main proponents of the plan.
The news comes just one day after Amsterdam's mayor said he would search for loopholes in new rules from the national government that would close marijuana cafés near schools citywide. The measures announced Saturday would affect about 36 coffee shops in the center itself -- about 20% of the city total. Asscher underlined that the city center will remain true to its freewheeling reputation. "It'll be a place with 200 windows" for prostitutes "and 30 coffee shops, which you can't find anywhere else in the world -- very exciting, but also with cultural attractions," he said. "And you won't have to be embarrassed to say you came."
Under the plan announced Saturday, Amsterdam is to spend $38 million to $51 million to bring hotels, restaurants, art galleries and boutiques to the center. It also is to build new underground parking areas.
Amsterdam already had plans to close many brothels and some coffee shops, but plans announced Saturday go further.
Asscher said the city would reshape the area, using zoning rules, buying out businesses and offering assistance to upgrade stores. The city has shut brothels and sex clubs in the past by relying on a law allowing the closure of businesses with bookkeeping irregularities.
Prostitution will be allowed only in two areas in the district -- notably De Wallen ("The Walls"), a web of streets and alleys around the city's medieval retaining dam walls. The area has been a center of prostitution since before the city's golden shipping age in the 1600s.
Prostitution was legalized in the Netherlands in 2000, formalizing a long-standing tolerance policy.
Marijuana is technically illegal in the Netherlands, but prosecutors won't press charges for possession of small amounts. Coffee shops are allowed to sell it openly.
Record crowds gathered in Amsterdam Saturday to watch the annual gay pride parade pass by boat on the city's waterways.
It is estimated that around 560,000 people from around the world looked on as the 80 boats and their occupants, decked out for the event, as they cruised the Amstel river and the Prinsengracht, one of the city's main canals. Organizers and police say that is about 60,000 more than in 2008.
Many of the displays decried persecution of gay people in other countries and continuing discrimination against gays in Western society. For the first time, homosexual members of the Dutch military and police forces could march in uniform, to major applause.
Other firsts included a boat with well-known gay athletes and one sponsored by the governing Christian Democratic party.
Amsterdam has gained a reputation as the world's gay capital in recent years. Nonetheless, that reputation has been marred by continuing isolated attacks, most recently when one of the event's organisers was attacked by a group of men in the middle of a street.
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A park near Amsterdam has unveiled information signs pointing out spots where officials say gay men are known to have sex, so visitors are not taken by surprise. The signs "clearly indicate what is happening in each zone; also those where gay men are known to practice 'cruising'," municipal spokeswoman Manon Koffijberg said. 
