Peeking at your neighbors? In Zoetermeer you will be fined for this!

Do you ever spy on your neighbors to see which garden party is being organized next? Or do you peek at the new interior of your neighbor across the street with binoculars? You better watch out for that. Before you know it you have a ticket hanging on your pants.

Together with Emmen, Zoetermeer is one of the few Dutch municipalities where you can be fined for peeping.

Two prohibitions against spying on people

Since 2014, there has been a peeping ban in Zoetermeer, which is included in the General Local Regulation (APV). Article 2:38a contains two prohibitions on spying on persons:

• It is prohibited to stay in the vicinity of a person or a building, caravan or houseboat with the apparent intention of spying on this person or a person who is in this building, this caravan or this houseboat.
• It is prohibited to spy on a person who is in a building, caravan or houseboat by means of binoculars or any other optical instrument.

The municipality will assess on a case-by-case basis whether the suspicious viewing behavior falls under the regulation. The peeping ban was mainly created to combat stalking.

via GIPHY