A coffee shop is to be built on Paletplein in Tilburg, but local residents are not keen on that at all. So they take action. “Because this is already such a vulnerable neighborhood,” says a lady with the protest sign ‘Look before you leap’ in her hand. The fear is that if a coffee shop is added, our children will no longer be able to go out on the street safely.
Seb is one of the children who comes to protest on Friday afternoon and he sees the darkness: “A bomb exploded at a coffee shop in the center recently. I don’t want a bomb to explode here.”
Seb is talking about the explosion that happened last year at coffee shop Caza on the Gasthuisring in Tilburg. The building was later also shot at, an attempt was made to start a fire and a grenade was placed in front of the shop that did not go off.
“We don’t want that in this neighborhood,” says Aaron Klomp. “Crime, unrest, that doesn’t belong here.” So immediately after the plans for the coffee shop were announced on Tuesday, he organized a demonstration. The location where the coffee shop should be located: Paletplein 11. There is now a Chinese restaurant Welcome there.
“Why not in the district where the councilors live?”
‘I’d rather have sambal than always be high’, says Lisa’s protest sign. She goes to school nearby. “We have to pass here. And if a coffee shop comes here, we can no longer play it safe.”
“Why don’t they place that coffee shop in Blaak, where all the councilors live?” Wilma wonders. As a ‘concerned grandmother’ she wants to make her voice of protest heard. “No, nothing ever happens in Blaak. And not at either the mayor in the street. But here, with ordinary, normal citizens. I don’t dare walk the streets here at night anymore, for fear of them robbing you. Just so I can buy that crap in the coffee shop. No not at all. I am strongly, strongly against it.”
Politician Hans Smolders of the Tilburg opposition party LST is also at the protest. “It is incomprehensible that we are already working on the third location,” he says. In June last year, it was decided after a lottery that there would be coffee shops on Verdiplein and in Berkel-Enschot. There were also violent protests there. The Verdiplein quickly fell through and a coffee shop in the new shopping center of Berkel-Enschot also seems unlikely after a procedural error.
“You shouldn’t bother vulnerable neighborhoods with this.”
“You just don’t want this in your neighborhood,” says Smolders. “It’s bad enough that it’s in the center. Vulnerable neighborhoods such as West and North should not be bothered with this.”
Mayor Theo Wetering thinks it is important that people let us know what they think and he understands the emotion, the municipality said in a response. Weterings spoke with entrepreneurs, representatives of the neighborhood council and schools on Tuesday and Thursday.
“The image of the neighborhood near a coffee shop and the image of the municipality do not match,” is the conclusion according to Weterings’ spokesperson. “But there is already an illegal drug trade in the area, of which there is no visibility. And where, in addition to soft drugs, hard drugs are also offered. In a coffee shop you can buy legal products from the middle of this year. This will make the trade more visible, regulated and protected.”
In addition to the demonstration, a petition has also been started, which was signed almost 1,800 times on Friday afternoon. There will be an information evening organized by the municipality on February 20. The activists are going to join forces and want to make themselves heard again.
HERE YOU CAN READ THE HISTORY OF THE COFFEE SHOP SOAP IN TILBURG:
Soap with two coffee shops continues, municipality is looking for a suitable location
Places for two new coffee shops were conjured up from scratch