According to the Dutch government regulations for coffee shops, an establishment cannot sell cannabis products and cannot sell alcohol. There used to be some coffee shops that functioned as bars, selling beer. But in April 2007, they were forced to decide between selling cannabis and alcohol products.
So where can I smoke and drink in Amsterdam?
Of course, with all regulations come loopholes for those rules. Because the law focuses on the sales of cannabis and alcohol, but not necessarily the consumption of them, there are some bars and coffee shops that are openly “smoker-friendly.”
One of the best examples of this is Barney’s Uptown, where you can enjoy beer, wine, or spirits while smoking a joint because they don’t sell cannabis. (To buy that, just walk across the street to Barney’s Coffeeshop.)
A similar setup is found in Kandinsky, another option in the city center, which has a smoking bar directly across the street. Near the Vondelpark, the acclaimed DJ café Kashmir Lounge, with its evocative South Asian-inspired interior, serves alcohol, sandwiches and tapas across the street from its sister cafe Kashmir.
There are also smoking bars that are not affiliated with any coffee shop, where customers can smoke freely on the premises. Some coffee shops decided to reopen as bars in 2007, and some of them retain their status as hotspots for cannabis smokers, only without their old cannabis license. One such option is Café De Buurvrouw, which also features live music from local acts. Similar bars are scattered throughout the city, but they are especially concentrated in the medieval center, where coffee shops and tourists who love them proliferate.
Other coffee shops have been converted into bars to comply with other restrictions on the sale of cannabis. The so-called ‘distance criterion’ ( afstandscriterium ), introduced in 2014, banned all cafeterias within 250 meters of a school. Since the same criteria did not apply to bars, some of the affected coffee shops made the switch to alcohol. Some, like the alternative music bar Cafe Sound Garden, are still smokers, a nod to their coffee shop past.
Accommodation for smokers
Last but not least, if you are staying in one of the city’s smoking-friendly hotels, all you have to do is go down to the hotel bar for a drink and a smoke. Amsterdam Hotel the Crown, for example, is a one star hotel that offers a smoking bar for customers.
Edited by Kristen de Joseph.
