Coffeeshop Entrepreneurs

In 1985 a star was born. Nestled into a bustling alleyway in one of the more quaint neighbourhoods, the Tweede Kamer introduced a new level of quality into the smoking scene. The shop quickly gained in popularity due to being the first to cut chunks of hash off a fresh block (instead of pre-weighed bags) and allowing customers to purchase small quantities of many different varieties. By January of 1993 a little sister called the Dampkring was on the way, completing the pair. So what made a guy called Paul and his friend Jeroen decide to open a coffeeshop?

Paul: “We started the coffeeshop because of the obvious thing: we are smokers! I was very young then; around 21. Instead of hanging out in a coffeeshop every day, we started thinking, you know, we’d better start our own. It was a very, very small place…. All my friends and relatives said, don’t do it, you know, it’s impossible to make money. So we hired a building….”

Some coffeeshop owners start one up in order to prove their growing prowess, but not Paul. “I was a smoker. I prefer to smoke hash. It took a while to find out about Dutch grass, the Oranje Bud.

We sold it for five, six years. We were so successful; the Tweede Kamer was (I think) the most famous coffeeshop in Amsterdam for the locals. So we were ‘living in an ivory tower,’ you know, we didn’t know what was going on around us.” So we know that Paul prefers the scene from “back then,” but what about the smoke? It was primarily the menu that set the Tweede Kamer apart from its competition in the early days, achieving

a perfect balance between price and quality. Paul recounts, “The first product that really helped us out was a Moroccan type of hash… they brought it in olive cans, the hash was in a condom, and the shape was a ball, like a big olive. That was quality. Price wise, I think it was the best hash in Amsterdam at the time. From the moment we sold the “Balletje” (little ball) hash, the Tweede Kamer became famous among the local people. After a few years, you know, because it was so successful, rival coffeeshops started faking them. You’d get all these different types of Moroccan shaped into a ball, and they’d sell it everywhere as a Balletje.”

Known for their large selection, the Tweede Kamer and Dampkring must have quite a difficult time keeping things interesting. Paul was introduced to the Haze family in the early 90’s, and remembers, “I think it was in ’94 that we heard about a coffeeshop that was selling weed for 18 guilders (€8,20) a gram. The Oranje Bud we were always selling at nine or ten guilders. So we picked up a bag, and that was the first Haze I ever smoked. …That’s how we found out that other people were, you know, also developing their coffeeshop and growing skills! We really had to come out of our ivory tower and realise that there was a

lot going on in Amsterdam. We saw that the coffeeshop scene was changing, and we weren’t the only ones with quality weed and hash.” owners are in it for different reasons and that Cannabis is not actually legal in the Netherlands. This means that technically coffeeshop owners are criminals; therefore the mentality behind their business is important to know. What motivates each individual entrepreneur has a direct effect on the quality of their menu. For some it’s money alone; for others, the simple idea of being able to supply their own tastes as well as those of the neighbourhood with reliable products. Paul certainly fits into the latter category.

“You know, I’ve been a smoker for 30 years now, and if it were only about the money, I could sell cars, or houses…! It was also nice, in the early years, that the people you met were all really nice people. They’re almost all gone, you know, the old hippies, they’re not here anymore. I always felt comfortable with those types of people.”

We already know how popular the Oranje Bud was, and it was pretty much the second success on the menu at the Tweede Kamer. “It was a very good

friend of mine who grew it, and this really was a coffeeshop owner’s dream. In those days everything was being grown in big greenhouses.”

and much more attention was paid by the average growers to the botanical aspects of the plant. This was well before the time of ample menus and mass production. Back then, the Teede Kamer weed was less profuse than it is now, but even in those days they stocked a wide variety of hash, as it was easier to obtain good quality hash at the time.

How things have changed. Twenty years ago the Tweede Kamer pulled in around 80% of revenue from hash sales and 20% from weed. Two decades was all it took to reverse these numbers, as nowadays buds are in higher demand. Paul fondly recalls his first purchase of Nederwiet, which was gaining popularity in 1985. “I remember when my friend came around the first year with the Oranje Bud, we didn’t take it! It was the only weed we had for a few years…but it was a hit; we had people lining up in front of the Tweede Kamer. We were one of the busiest shops in Amsterdam, with only 24 square metres and one kind of weed [laughs].”

A bit later on he had adopted around four or five types of hash, one or two types of imported weed, and of course the Oranje Bud. “There’s an old photo in the Tweede Kamer from before when we redid the place, of the old weed cans behind the counter. There’s only one can, the Oranje Bud, and a couple of plates with little bits of hash on each one, that was it. Now we’ve got a whole wall!”

It’s evident and just makes sense that menu selections would have increased, but so have the restrictions taking place behind closed doors, away from the red eyes of the smoking public. In the last few years coffeeshop policies have become stricter, and rules that have been in place for ages are now heavily enforced.

Coffeeshops are only permitted to operate for three years before needing to reapply for what can loosely be called a “license.” It doesn’t really protect the owners, and many new restrictions have surfaced in the past 18 months. Cannabis cafes may no longer post the trademark weed leaf, either on the walls or on products like filter tips. Coffeeshops are also now forbidden from sponsoring any clubs or sports. The big push right now is to close all coffeeshops which lie within 500metres of a school.

Despite the government’s view of coffeshop owners as criminals, they are subjected to “integrity” policies as well. Now all potential or current owners must submit to a background check, plus the source of your business investment is investigated. If you own other businesses you must also submit the paperwork from each of those for investigation, and it helps to have a clean history with the tax police. If you have a criminal record, forget it! No coffeeshop for you!

This past summer space milkshakes and chocolates were banned, and cakes are only barely legal; they must contain a description/ disclaimer indicating that they contain THC. These are counted towards the 500g capacity that is tolerated on the premises. Insane rules like this make it difficult to run a coffeeshop. Paul suggests kilos instead of 500g, not only because of the irritation of restocking and invoicing, but also because the runners (guys with scooters who replenish the smoke) are now at risk constantly of being cited or arrested for possession of over the tolerated 5g per person. This also creates more drug traffic. “It’s just not workable,” says Paul.

The coffeeshop menu can be displayed on the bar, contrary to what many say in town or have been told, but Jason, the manager of the Dampkring, points out that as long as it’s not visible from the outside of the shop, it’s okay. Often each coffeeshop deals with unique problems as a result of which particular cop is assigned to the neighbourhood.

The Horeca Intervention Team (HIT) once put tape over the lenses of Paul’s security cameras when raiding, which is illegal, in order to protect the identity of their team. Paul does it to protect himself, finding it necessary to keep an eye on customers for several reasons. It is actually now illegal for customers to be searched in shops (though they must present ID when asked), but they of the shop during a raid. He explains, “You’re fucked if they find a few grams of coke on the ground, or a few pills,” then adds, “if they really want to go after you, it’s very easy.” The necessity of the security is that should a shop owner ever be closed (which happens immediately) he can then check the cameras to see who brought in the hard drugs. If he can prove the coffeeshop was not involved, he may be reopened. Regular cafes and pubs don’t have to worry about these raids, where once a year the HIT team show up and twice a year the tax police visit.

The already tricky issue of running a coffeeshop is further complicated when the people who are meant to enforce the laws don’t actually know them very well. Add to that the fact that over the last two years drug laws seem to have changed more than in the ten before that, and Amsterdam gets confusing.

One particularly senseless rule that is now being enforced is that coffeeshops are forbidden from advertising, including putting their address, etc., on packs of roach papers or on lighters. If the shops aren’t clearly denoted, nonsmokers may stumble in accidentally, and dedicated smokers always end where the coffeeshops are pretty much the lowest quality in town. The Tweede Kamer has never had a problem attracting customers, as advertising has always been word of mouth.

The “license” policy that still governs coffeeshops came into effect in 1996. The murky rules can be clarified by six letters, as coffeeshops are dictated by the “AHOJGV”-rules which set common standards for all Cannabis distributors. These outlaw advertising for the shop, set an 18-year minimum for age, dictate 500g as a capacity limit for the shop and 5g per person per day for purchase, promote zero tolerance for hard drugs, and make sure that the shop isn’t loud, violent, or disruptive to neighbours.

Luckily, Paul has maintained good relations with his neighbours, but it wasn’t always easy. “When we opened we told the whole neighbourhood that we were gonna be a lunchroom. In the beginning we sold sandwiches. [Laughs] For the first few months we even had lots of old ladies coming in! You know, they had seen a new shop, it looked nice, and they stopped by for a sandwich!

“We opened the Tweede Kamer in a very traditional, classical area… we had the Landskroon Bakery on the corner who created the space cake recipe for the shop. The old owner was from Austria and was really a Christian conservative type of guy, his wife, too. They didn’t really like the whole hashish thing on the street. Every time I parked my car on the bridge, he called the cops, things like that.” Things changed when Paul’s sister-in-law saw the old guy exiting one of the ladies’ windows in the Red Light District one day. “So we went to the bakery the next day, you know, ordered some nice cakes, and then we asked him, ‘Hey, did you have a good time yesterday?’ And after that he never bothered us again!

“But we had good relations with our neighbours; there’s a Dutch saying that it’s better to have a good neighbour than a faraway friend. So we kept the street clean and swept, and asked the guys with the scooters not to come into the alley, no one hung out in front of the door, you know, smoking joints. Through the years they all found out that we’re all nice guys, we never had trouble with the police.”

Responsible and respectable business owners like Paul are marginalised into a criminal category because of the product they sell. The Dutch government has no problem collecting taxes from these people, yet the livelihood of coffeeshop owners hangs by a thread each day. As if that weren’t enough, there is a certain amount of hypocrisy in place within the drug legislation. Coffeeshops are judged by different standards than other drug distributors. In pubs and cafes, customers are not submitted to checks and the cafes themselves are not raided in search of hard drugs.

There is little evidence to support the idea that the War on Drugs is effective. In fact prohibition creates criminals, and things are no different in the Netherlands. Paul has seen the negative impact of punitive drug laws. “There are so many small home growers who get busted, everybody is scared; you get kicked out of your house, you have to pay the electricity bills and fines, the tax people come, and you lose your social security. So a lot of good people, the people who just want a single room, don’t dare to grow anymore, so the criminals come in. The policy makers in the Netherlands are creating more criminals. Also, the quality goes down. And those criminals in Holland, you know, they could rob a bank, but they’d go to jail for eight years. They could deal cocaine or heroin, but they’re going to jail for eight years. They all want to grow because the penalties are not that high. It’s an easy choice.”

Penalties might not be that bad, but it’s much easier to get caught than it used to be thanks to a special group of privatised police intended solely to bust grow spaces. Known as “SEON,” this band of ex-cops get paid to find and destroy grow rooms. This all started around 18 months ago, and can be viewed as a sort of private DEA. From January through April of this year they closed down more grow rooms than during the whole of 2005.

Since the “back door” of the coffeeshops is unregulated, it’s much easier for the growers to indulge in criminal behaviour, while the “front door” of the shop is so carefully watched. It’s resulted in a policy that was birthed in June of last year, the famous ‘cannabis letter’ from Minister of Justice Donner in which he talked about going after the growers as a priority. In fact, many growers abroad would be shocked to learn just how often Dutch growers are busted, fined, arrested, etc. The result is that modern Dutch Cannabis has become massproduced and low average quality, so it is important to protect businesses like the Tweede Kamer and Dampkring, who insist on high standards. The major weed supply had been driven indoors and overall quality plummeted when the old-school greenhouses went down by the early 90’s.

Paul wistfully recalls the difference in the products of the early days, “We had become so dependent on Oranje Bud, like I said; it was a coffeeshop owner’s dream. All grown in greenhouses, all biological, packed in 500g bags and perfectly dried. He had a greenhouse, and they grew hundreds of kilos a year. It was perfect, and then they got busted a few years later.” This was one of the final nails in the coffin of the original Dutch weed.

“The last one that got busted was a huge one; it made the front page of De Telegraaf (Holland’s biggest newspaper –ed). The bust was about seven football fields of greenhouses, and it was the end of that group of people because they had already had a big bust the year before. We were so dependent on that Oranje Bud, and we never thought about what would happen if it was gone. So then we really had a problem. We had to find other types of weed; we got in a little low spot.”

Luckily, when you have such a good and long-standing reputation in the Cannabis industry, it’s usually not difficult to find new growers. Paul agrees. “We’ve never had too much trouble with that,” he claims. “It’s difficult to make contacts with new growers because of the risk. But you never know when you’ll need them. I have this big glass jar in the office for samples, and it’s never empty. This year, I think it was January or February, Dutch coffeeshops experienced the biggest Cannabis crisis I’ve ever seen in my life. I think it was weeks that this jar was empty. That really gives me the sign that something is going on out there.” That “something” is a result of what Paul calls “a whole movement in the Western World,” the global War on Drugs. In the last three years, the Christian Right has made its presence known through conservative drug legislation. Some would call it American influence in the Netherlands, but it’s also Minister Donner who seems to have a major beef with the coffeeshop scene in general. With prohibition comes hypocrisy: back in 2001 the Tweede Kamer was penalised due to having an underage tourist (by one month) in the shop. It was enough to close the coffeeshop for a week, which Paul found unnecessarily harmful to their revenue. This was the first time he’d ever felt like quitting the industry. As he suggests, why not apply the same standards for anyone who sells drugs, legal or otherwise? With regards to underage teens shoplifting alcohol from supermarkets, if one gets into drunken trouble, a week’s closure should also apply. “If you do it to me, you also have to do it to the supermarket,” Paul insists.

If the conservatives are re-elected in November, as Paul says, Dutch coffeeshops are “in trouble. No matter how legal we coffeeshop owners keep things, we always run the risk of being closed down and it’s very frustrating. As of 1 April 2007, there will be no alcohol in coffeeshops anymore, and it doesn’t make sense. Paul contacted the GGD (Health Board) to find out about any complaints filed or accidents as a result of combining the two drugs, and there were none. As far as he is concerned, “If we end up with the same government next time, we’re screwed. The CDA [Christian Democrats] are promoting a ‘zero option,’ meaning they’re working towards no coffeeshops at all…” although there is a rumour circulating that the Amsterdam mayor suggests around 200 would be sensible for a small city like ours. If the growers became regulated and licensed, it would greatly improve the overall quality of the smoke in town. Locally, in major cities around the Netherlands, there is space to experiment with “back door” policies, but Donner threatens to bring in the Justice Department. Benefits include less stolen electricity, more focus on organics, health and the environment (radioactivity and heavy metals in nutrients, how to safely dispose of growing products, etc.) A few shop owners do provide their customers honestly with great smoke for great prices, and they’re still considered criminals and threatened with the Justice Department. “It would be a good thing if we could figure out a way to mainstream coffeeshops as businesses, instead of just places where drugs are sold.”

We have to wonder, how will the alcohol- (2007) and tobacco (2009) ban affect coffeeshops? In fact, coffeeshops could be the answer. That way, the only people exposing themselves to the smoke are the ones who actually wish to inhale it. Ten years ago there were around 1500 shops, and now there are about 700. Paul reminds us that this does not mean there are fewer smokers; in fact, there are likely far more now than a decade ago. Who knows what the future holds for Dutch coffeeshops? In the meantime, stop by the Dampkring or Tweede Kamer the next time you’re in Amsterdam; they’ll keep you informed.

It’s not just because we all like to smoke that we don’t want to see the coffeeshops disappear. As Paul points out, perhaps one of the most important social aspects of Cannabis is that it promotes social discussion and integration. It would be a shame to see even more restrictions placed upon a plant that has brought people together for thousands of years, especially in a “tolerant” country such as the Netherlands.