Drinking wine outside your front door? That’ll cost you €110 in Amsterdam

You know the feeling: the sun is shining, you’ve worked hard all week and you open a bottle of wine. To enjoy it outside your front door with your partner/friends. Sounds like a great idea to me — unless you live in Amsterdam. There, it could cost you dearly.

More specifically: in Amsterdam’s city centre. The municipality has introduced an alcohol ban in places where residents experience nuisance from people drinking. You can probably guess that this mainly applies to tourist areas such as Westermarkt, the Red Light District, Dam Square and Leidseplein. This ban applies both during the day and at night. But also to people enjoying a glass of wine outside their own front door, or even on their doorstep. And although the places mentioned above are tourist attractions, they are all residential areas too.

Innocent neighbourhood drinkers

I lived in the city centre for years and yes, drinks outside the front door happened regularly. Because when you don’t have a balcony, sitting outside in the sun means doing so in front of your door. Great fun and completely innocent. We didn’t stagger home drunk, throw bottles into the street or cause any other nuisance. Yet innocent neighbourhood drinkers can also be fined if they fail to comply with the new alcohol ban. How is that possible?

Public space

The alcohol ban has been included in the municipality’s General Local Regulation (APV). And distinguishing between visitors and residents of the city is difficult because the rules in the APV apply equally to everyone, a spokesperson for the Centrum district told Het Parool. The ban states that public space extends from one opposite façade to the other. This means that a staircase, handrail, pavement or landing outside someone’s door also forms part of the public space. These places are accessible to everyone, after all.

A warning first

That said, enforcement is not immediate. Enforcement officers will first ask whether you would like to finish your drink indoors, according to the spokesperson. If you don’t, you will be fined 110 euros.

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Source: Het Parool