DutchNews.nl - Uncooperative Amsterdam brothel owners to lose property

Brothel owners in Amsterdam’s red light district are to be forced to help the city council clean-up in the area or face losing their property, the Volkskrant reports on Thursday.

The city council on Wednesday evening voted in favour of changes to the area’s zoning laws, making it possible to evict uncooperative owners.

The city is in the middle of a major operation to revamp the red light district, situated in one of the oldest and most picturesque parts of the capital.

Lodewijk Asscher, the alderman in charge of the project, told the paper he expects lengthy legal procedures. ‘Sex industry bosses are always in for a fight,’ he said. ‘The concept zoning plan had not even been finished and lawyers were at the ready’.

The project involves reducing the number of window brothels, gambling halls and cannabis cafes and upgrading hotels and bars. By reducing the number of brothels, the city council hopes to break up the criminal network which dominates the district.

So far, around 100 of the 500 red light windows have been shut down and a further 100 are targeted for closure by 2017. Housing corporations have been buying up the properties with council financial support for the loss of value – brothels are worth more than ordinary housing.

Asscher refused to say how much the corporations and city have spent on buying up brothels. ‘You could then come up with a price per window and that would damage the city’s negotiating position,’ he said.

Is this the right way to tackle the problems attached to prostitution? Have your say using the comment box below.

Readers' Comments

If there is demand then the workers will find other ways of "selling" their products, just like the street dealers are snapping up the closed coffeshop's business.......

By Marco | 6 September 2012 11:47 AM

I am not sure this is so much about fighting criminality, the red light is pretty quiet already, but I believe big hotel/shop companies have their eye on the area, they have big plans already and they would pick up any excuse and use any ways to see them trough,.... Gentrification again and again,....

By JulesC | 6 September 2012 1:00 PM

I don't know if this is the right way to tackle problems associated with prostitution, but forcing owners out of their properties because the city council changed their mind is not democratic and very totalitarian. Using taxpayers money to finance private housing corporations is also wrong.

By AnotherExpat | 6 September 2012 1:17 PM

What are the "problems" attached to prostitution?

Or are we simply forcing the problems underground or into neighborhoods via the internet?

By bruce | 6 September 2012 1:55 PM

Good idea. The Germans started doing similar things back in the 1930s and they after that were able to completely control everything in that country.

By HenkV | 7 September 2012 3:02 AM

This stinks of a hidden agenda and will make life more difficult for women who choose to work in prostitution. The windows are the places where they can work for themselves with the most autonony. The council probably believes its own rhetoric now it has been trotting it out for so long. Idiots.

By Mark Law | 7 September 2012 7:46 AM

In this era of Internet, I don't see any reasons why prostitution should be something conducted out in streets. I have a moral standing against prostitution and drugs, though I think both should be legal regardless.

In any case, people who want to find paid sex can probably "procure" for such services online.

By Andre L. | 7 September 2012 8:13 AM

Sex-boss-driven prostitution is a modern-day form of slavery, one of the worst kinds in my humble opinion. I am puzzled as to why anyone wants to support these operators and their criminal activities. Shame these operators, shame the 'johns', offer trapped women a way out.

By Albert Kuyerhuis | 7 September 2012 4:51 PM

When Dutch authorities use the term "clean up", what they invariably mean is the removal of people.
Whether they be prostitutes, smokers, people who live in trailers or houseboats; they are not dirt.
It peeves me that destruction of homes and livelihoods is so casually referred to as “cleaning”.
If a democratically elected government chooses to displace people and close unpopular businesses, so be it.
But call it what it is.

By liveaboard | 7 September 2012 11:29 PM