I was very vocal that they shouldn't make the "coffeeshops" Dutch only, but that was before widespread legalization elsewhere. I remember seeing a lot of people pissing and shitting in places other than toilets and worse, with the attitude they could just get on a train and never come back and the police wouldn't come after them.
(In America, crossing the border like that is less effective.)
>Prague, Budapest, Instanbul, Berlin, even Belgrade have a party scene I'd describe as wilder and edgier.
But in those cities if you act out, you'll be punched out. Amsterdam seemed to have a lot of people who can't handle ambiguity, hence needing to literally go into the weed store with weed and literally go to the sex worker store with a sex worker in the window.
(I don't pay for sex, but as a humanist if that trade is going to happen I'd rather it be legal so folks have recourse if abused... it troubles me when it's warped from something done in desparation by the first generation into something glamorous.)
I feel bad for Dutch people. It's also got great coffee shops (for just espresso), museums, parks... it's like there's two cities in one.
I mean look at the article:
>This latest round of proposed measures includes initiatives targeting troublesome tourist behavior, such as limiting the number of river cruises; implementing earlier closing times for bars, clubs and window brothels; and banning cannabis smoking in certain parts of the city.
I was under the impression you should only doing it in the shops, and are risking a ticket or worse if you do it out of the park where it bothers people?
I feel bad since I was a bit wild myself, in the get drunk and be loud sense... but dear lord they're absolutely right to not want a bunch of 19 year olds re-enacting Eurotrip, people don't act antisocial in say, Prague or Paris at the level they do in AMS, but both have sex work and drugs. It's like the European Las Vegas, in that people confuse respect for privacy and autonomy with a free pass to do whatever they want.
PS: The Red Light district, once you're not near the windows, is quite beautiful and there's a lot of small shops and bars that are well run. It's literally like two streets that are "extreme", and the issue IMHO is the type of guy who comes to treat the window girls like zoo animals, not sex work per se.
Anyways, sorry for the wall of text -- I'm ill, and coping by pounding sudafed and water and posting on the internet since apparently antibiotics won't cure this cold virus, and it makes me sad as an autistic person seeing how badly people mess up on purpose when the entire time I was in the country I was petrified I'd offend people.
TL;DR:Some tourists are assholes it's fine to not want them showing up.