“Terrible decision”: Den Bosch votes to scrap Carnaval Thursday

Den Bosch city council has voted to scrap Carnaval Thursday in the city centre, cancelling a street party that had stretched to six days.

Thursday is not officially part of Carnaval at all, but in recent years the festivities in the city, known as Oeteldonk, had crept forward to the day before the official Friday start.

From next year, no events will be allowed in the city centre on the Thursday, meaning the end of popular street parties Roet Korte Put and Worstenbrôôdwee, and bars serving alcohol will have to stay shut until 6pm.

In compensation, the official opening on Friday will be brought forward from 3pm to 9am.

“It is a terrible decision,” mayor Jack Mikkers told Omroep Brabant. “But we were at six days of Carnaval and that is simply too much. The limit has been reached.”

Hospitality businesses and retailers had spent two and a half years trying to reach an agreement on the Thursday problem, but eventually asked the council to take a decision.

Hospitality industry association KHN described the measures as disproportionate, unnecessarily restrictive and damaging to the city’s hospitable character.

The ban only covers the city centre after councillors rejected the mayor’s call to extend it across the entire municipality, arguing that villages such as Rosmalen should not pay the price for the city centre’s problems.

Den Bosch, which attracts some 250,000 people during Carnaval, has been trying to rein in the event for some time. In January, the council and Carnaval association De Oeteldonkse Club urged partygoers to ditch the banana suits and return to the traditional farmers’ smock, saying the event had become too much of a festival.

Carnaval, held in the mainly Catholic south in the run-up to Lent, briefly renames towns and cities and brings normal life to a halt.