DRIVE IN COFFEE SHOP OPEN

After years of preparation this Monday the first Dutch coffee shop near to the German border was officially open on Monday the 27th of September 2004. 'A coffee shop so close to the German border, that is asking for political problems', many people say. Since the opening of the first drive-in coffee shop, the tension between the city hall of Venlo , the Dutch Minister of Justice Piet Hein Donner and the German authorities is rising. Despite the political commotion Venlo perseveres: a second coffee shop will be opened on the 16th of November 2004 on the same location - 50 metres from the Dutch-German border.

Although the new location for the coffee shops is only 5 minutes from the centre of Venlo , the city hall thinks the new location will seriously diminish the annoyance caused by the German soft-drugs tourists in the centre of town. An independent consultancy company will do research on the effects of the displacement of the soft drugs selling outlets.

The manager of the close-to-the-border coffee shop is happy with the new location: 'There is a lot more space inside and there is a enormous guarded car park amongst others for the 60% German customers.' To him the argument that the new coffee shop attracts a lot more German soft drugs tourists is nonsense: 'The whole city of Venlo is situated besides the Dutch-German border. The German soft drugs users will come anyway and if they are resisted they will just travel somewhere else in The Netherlands. One of the German clients calls the drive-in coffee shop 'Ein Superladen'

The new policy of the city hall in Venlo conflicts with the lately presented new plans of the Dutch government concerning soft drugs sales and production: ‘The Cabinet has the aim to organise an integrated and balanced approach dealing with the negative side effects and unwanted developments of the cannabis use, -cultivation and -sales. They will do this by fighting the cultivation, the non-tolerated outlets (coffee shops), the soft drugs tourism. Besides this the Dutch authorities will actively discourage the use of soft drugs and they will attack the complete chain, from production to use. more features

September 30, 2004