Amsterdam Doesn't Want Any More Stores for Tourists

No more bike rental shops, no more ticket agencies, no more fancy cheese—and absolutely no more Nutella. That’s the upshot of new rules approved in Amsterdam last week intended to halt the tourist takeover of its city center. Concerned that the urban core is losing its livability for locals, the city will ban new tourist-oriented businesses on every street within the city’s Singel Canal and on all main streets reaching out to the edge of its Canal Belt.

They will also restrict (without entirely banning) new openings of take-away food stores that specialize in fare bought mainly by visitors, such as ice cream parlors or candy stores, with particular attention to so-called “Nutella shops”—places that sell waffles and pancakes smeared with the nutty spread, whose presence has grown exponentially in central Amsterdam in recent years.