Tea and coffee shop ‘t Zonnetje on the Haarlemmerdijk in Amsterdam was today full of disappointed customers. The owner can no longer pay the increased rent and that is why the store was last open today.
Owner Marie-Louise Velder paid 3000 euros a month in the past period, but the owner of that building would have wanted to double that. The judge was busy reducing that amount to a rental amount around 4300 euros, but that is too high to continue.
“I have not been sleeping that thunder for three weeks. If you are almost open for 450 years, we are the oldest in Europe, and it can no longer continue, then that hurts,” Velder explains. She understood that the landlord wants to earn money, “but not that way.”
Many regular customers came by again today. “I am crying. I mean. It’s so beautiful. Who wants to get rid of this now? That is just not possible,” one of them said. Another: “I think it is so sad that these types of stores have to go away. Because just a number of money wolves are in control. And apparently the municipality cannot do anything about it. I think it is more than outrageous.”
Velder in particular hopes that the government will make an effort to limit rent increases. “That we have no protection, we will break that. It will be just like America. That we only get supermarkets where everything happens.”
AT5 has tried to reach the property owner several times, but he did not answer the phone. It is therefore not yet clear what kind of store will be in the building. Velder and the local residents don’t know that either.