For three months, a number of private security guards have been walking around the shopping streets around Dam Square on the busiest days of the week. It is a pilot by the municipality and the five business associations in the area, which see that entrepreneurs feel increasingly unsafe.
Roël Dunand is one of the three security guards who walk through the shopping streets around Dam Square from Thursday to Sunday. “I think we receive an average of five calls per hour,” he says. “It often concerns shoplifting or aggressive customers. This neighborhood is an attraction for criminals, so I am happy that I can contribute to the sense of safety of shopkeepers.”
The pilot runs from October to December and is an initiative of five business associations in the center (Dam, Damrak, Rokin, Kalverstraat and Nieuwendijk) and the municipality. These so-called walking stations must be present in the store within three minutes. When necessary, they call the police.
Fifty times
Cindy Stechweij coordinates the pilot on behalf of the municipality and entrepreneurs and hears from shopkeepers that they feel increasingly unsafe in the neighborhood. “If the municipality and the police are somehow unable to guarantee that sense of safety among retailers, due to limited capacity or long arrival times, then let’s at least work together to ensure that retailers feel safe,” she says.
In the first week, the security guards were already called fifty times by retailers. The pilot will run until the end of the year and will then be evaluated by all parties involved.