History of Dutch Coffeeshops

The first official Amsterdam coffeeshop was opened by Wernard Bruining? and some friends at the Weesperzijde 53, in a squatted bakeryshop, in 1972. It was actually a logical follow-up of the friend to friend service that was going on in the place before that, but the group of friends extended rapidly, smoking hash? drinking tea and relaxing together.

"That gave us the idea to open a teahouse or a coffeeshop, that was easy, since there was no permit required. The name was inspired by the Donovan hit in those days, Mellow Yellow," Wernard explains.

There were other adresses to get hash or weed, like Paradiso? and Kashba? Both these public places had house dealers.

It was a perfect time to open an establishment where Amsterdams hash-smokers could get their cannabis without much hassle.Wernard left the sales of the goods to an English neighbor, who sat in the former bakery shop for two-three hours a day, as a house dealer.

Bruining says, "We called the place a teahouse, thinking that would indicate the sales of what we called cannabis those days. Everybody knew it as coffee shop however, and they all knew what was offered there."

"The atmosphere in the beginning was superb."

Towards the end of 1972, after the house dealer left for Greece on a new adventure, Wernard and his friends, Peter van Schie, Herman and Wernards girlfriend Marian, had to adjust to a more professional way of exploiting the business. Herman was the thriving force, organising all material to give the Mellow Yellow a new look in 1973.

Peter became the dealer, behind the bar this time. Becoming famous for carrying around a big, brown leather bag, from which he sold all sizes and weights in pre-packed sizes. It began with 25 guilder bags, initiated by Herman, with slices of hash, cut by Wernard, "From lumps of a pound, or so..."

The pre-packed bags were 'stashed' in a bookstore nearby, to be able to supply the dealer on short notice. The customers did not have to bargain about the price any longer, this method became common in the hash-business.

The Mellow Yellow was open from wake-up time until 3 o'clock in the morning, serving cannabis, coffee and cozy company to a growing crowd. Initially marijuana was purchased from a dealer on a houseboat, 50 or 100 grams at a time. The best item on the menu, according to sales, Lebanese hash? weed was not available in large quantities yet.

As business grew, the demand grew, more people started to come in and offer merchandise, including someone from Morocco. Wernard started to do business with Caesar, "He was a big man in the business, and he just liked us", said Wernard.

The transactions were being made in Caesars home at the Hoofddorpsquare. Wernard explained how he learned a lot from the way Caesar did his business.

"He always kept all his contacts away from each other, his house could be full of people, in the kitchen and even in the bedroom, but they would never see one and other. Caesar kept his suppliers and customers separated, a good lesson to be learned."

The marijuana menu was expanded with Moroccan and Afghani hashes? even some Indonesian weed, which Wernard bought for about 900 guilders per kilo. The weed was sold in ten gram bags, some people, from the Amsterdam grey area, even bought ten bags at a time. The Mellow Yellow was thriving.

Peter and Marian took turns as dealers, and moved to being in front of the bar, enabling them to pay more attention to the smoking clientele. There was no competition, yet, and the police did not seem to bother. The police was fully concentrated on heroin, that hit the Amsterdam market in 1972, even though hash was as forbidden as the opiate. "The view on hash was different then", as former head-prosecutor Hartsuiker remembers, "The use of hash was not considered a real problem."

1975 The Mellow Yellow was unique in its kind, until 1975, when more hash coffeeshops started to open up. Maarten, a regular at Mellow Yellow, who saw opportunity, opening coffee shop Rusland (Russia), and came up with the slogan : "Invade Russia for a change!"

The police did exactly that! In the following years.

An other remarkable guy started a coffeeshop in Amsterdam in the same year, Henk de Vries? he opened a place called the Bulldog? at present he is the owner of four Bulldog coffee shops in Hollands capital. Henk de Vries had his share of difficulties with the police, he even spent several years in prison in Germany, after a deal with an undercover policeman.

Wernard knew Henk already back then, as a guy that did some hash deals for fun. Eventually, it went so good for him, he decided to start his own business. With Henk de Vries and his Bulldog, a new kind of cannabusinessmen started to emerge. More commercial than the hippie-styled Mellow Yellow and Paradiso scene, consisting of a student and intellectual crowd.

De Vries had several collisions with the law, and was even the subject of an expensive investigation, with telephone-taps, but it was called off, for unknown reasons. The police was to occupied to keep busting coffeeshops, the Chinese heroin-triads were in conflict with big time smugglers and dealers from Turkey, over power on the Amsterdam heroin market. His second aggressor was the Taxman, he was haunted by the tax authorities for years, but managed to stay in business and prosper, against all odds.

De Vries was the first one to come up with house rules, and put those up in his businesses

• No hard drugs
• No violence
• No sales of stolen goods

These rules were later included in the Tolerance-policy, expanded with some rules the government felt they had to add.

Henk de Vries and other steady coffeeshopkeepers kept on re-opening their raided coffeeshops, time after time, forcing the police to give up on the hard line, after finding out that coffeeshops and their visitors caused no real problems. Henk was not appreciated for all that back then, and that did not become any better when he had a promotion-plane flying over Amsterdam, in 1985, with the text : "The Bulldog, the first, the best, the biggest !"

1976 The Dutch government made a big decision in changing their drug laws by separating drugs in two major classes, hard drugs and soft drugs.

Cannabis products like hash and marihuana were considered soft drugs.

This step was taken to keep the users of cannabis away from hard drugs users, by allowing the sales of small quantities of cannabis from regulated outlets. By not allowing the sales and use of any other drugs in those outlets, this system successfully stood firm against those who accuse cannabis of being a gateway drug.

1980 The coffeeshops in Amsterdam were an inspiration for marijuana enthusiasts from the whole of Holland, and they started to open coffeeshops and teahouses all over the country.

It caused some trouble in the border area's, when Germany started to complain about a youth-center in Enschede, that sold hash, that might attract German smokers.

All this drove up the prices of the hash, It was the Wild West era of coffeeshops.

Nobody minded selling larger quantities, because there were no legal limits to the tolerated sales of soft drugs, only the 30 gram for personal use restriction.

The police were always two steps behind, as they found out in 1987, when they realized they allowed the creation of a humongous monster, consisting of a couple of multi-billion hash-organizations, smuggling huge quantities to Europe and other parts of the world.

1990 Around 1990, Holland counted around 1450 coffeeshops, 400 in Amsterdam the other 1000+ spread over the 12 provinces, with concentration in the bigger cities, and in the border area's with Belgium and Germany.

The coffeeshop culture offered a shop for every group of the population or lifestyle.

From hippie-style shops to supermarket like shops, who gave out stamps to keep the customers coming back.

1993, 1994, 1995, 1996

amsterdam weed

Highest number of coffeeshops ever, around 1450. That changed after 1994 the number of coffeeshops was down to about 1275, caused by the police following up on the new guidelines, and closing coffeeshops that broke the rules too many times. It was a difficult time for the coffeeshop keepers in those dark days, they could only have 30 grams of cannabis in stock, so, many were closed because they had to much cannabis in the place. Haarlem was the only exception, with the 1500 gram rule the police allowed. NO Advertising. No more marijuana leafs on the front of coffeeshops. NO Harddrugs on the premises, not for sale and not for personal use. The shopkeeper and staff have to be real sharp on this, the police is. NO Disturbing of the peace, like to loud music, customers being to loud on leaving the premises, etc. NO Youths, they are not allowed in under 18 years of age. NO Big Quantities, coffeeshops were not allowed to sell more than 5 grams, per person, per day. Coffeeshops were allowed to stock a maximum of 500 grams.

1997 Haarlem became really serious about the age rule as well, we were forced to sent 316 members, 16 and 17 years of age, out on the street... We had been padded on the shoulder by the police and the city for years, for our system with registration and passes, but now we were treated as pushers, trying to get young people to smoke cannabis. The situation was on national TV, for several times, parents of our former members openly showed their support for our system, it did not matter.

2002 - Onward The rules and regulations are still valid today, and are still executed in all seriousness.

Today, Holland has around 900 coffeeshops

Coffeeshops have slowly taken over the function of the former youth-houses and neighborhood centers, were people used to come together,

Coffeeshops are visited and frequented by people from all walks of life, from all colors, backgrounds, religions and ages, who smoke their cannabis in peace and tranquility, together.

The business in the Dutch coffeeshops has gone trough an evolution, over the last 10-12 years, in what they offer and sell. Today the sales of most coffeeshops are about 75 % Dutch Homegrown. Dutch homegrown marijuana pushed most of the imported hash off the market.

---