With a festival ticket, you can smoke pot all you like
Not a Dutchie but in possession of an entry ticket to either the Roadburn or Woo Hah! Festival? Then visit any coffeeshop in Tilburg and smoke pot till you drop. After the city council pressed the mayor to allow foreign visitors to these festivals to visit coffeeshops, the Secretary for Justice Klaas Dijkhoff aknowledged today that Tilburg is allowed to take a unique position on this.
As a general rule, nowadays foreigners are not allowed to buy marijuana in Dutch coffeeshops. The authorities mean to minimalize nuisances and crime in neigbourhoods as well as drugs tourism.
Answering questions in parliament, Dijkhoff said that city councils are allowed to customize their local policies. And that is exactly what Tilburg is doing, all within legal boundaries according to Dijkhoff, by making owners of these festival tickets temporary residents of Tilburg. One of the bigger opposition parties, the christian-democratic CDA, described this ‘bending of the rules’ as outrageous. Dijkhoff stressed that Tilburg only makes an exception for visitors to these two festivals.
Photo: Dolph Cantrijn
Advertentie.
