Coffee pot

It’s not just the ‘smart shops’ that are under threat in Holland. Many of its famous ‘coffee shops’, where the sale and consumption of marijuana has been tolerated since the 1960s, also face closure under a forthcoming smoking ban.

There are at least 3,000 such establishments in Holland, catering for many hundreds of thousands of tourists who visit the country each year specifically because of its liberal attitudes on such matters. So they carry a lot more economic and political clout than the smart shops.

One consequence is that Holland’s smoking ban is likely to have more ‘get out clauses’ than the UK one. And some coffee shop proprietors are also looking at moving into the pizza business, with a whole new range of toppings to cater for their particular clientele.