Stroll through Rembrandtplein or Leidsplein, squares with some of the city’s biggest nightspots, and you’ll get a sense of the situation. At around 4am, when the lights go out in the glitzy clubs and revellers are kicked out onto the streets, things tend to turn ugly. Ejected from a pulsing party into a sedate vacuum, clubbers often get into brawls. Rembrandtplein square itself reports up to 300 incidents of violence each year. Things are so bad, sleepless residents in these neighbourhoods complain of living in a “4am war-zone”.
Since 2003, Amsterdam has had a public official dedicated to making the city thrive after dark. Enter Mirik Milan, a man the city elected as nachtburgmeester, or ‘night mayor’, to fix the problem without killing the joy. Milan, 36, was a promoter of a club and has a vast experience organising parties, fashion shows and other events. Now, in his civic role, Milan is finding creative ways to change the perception”much of it well deserved”that Amsterdam’s nightlife is made of drunk, rowdy men pedalling beer bikes and retching into canals, before banging up the narrow Dutch staircases wearing souvenir wooden shoes in the dead of the night.
While the city was rooting for curfews, shutdowns even, Milan’s solution was more outside of the box. Amsterdam’s night mayor proposed setting up 10 clubs just outside the city centre, all running 24×7. “Often people in nightclubs don't want to go home at 4 a.m.”only some of them do,” says Milan. “By having free opening hours the club can decide when they want to open and close, which means that 1,000 people aren't suddenly thrown out on to the street at five in the morning. Instead, they start leaving in a steady, manageable stream around 3 a.m. and continue until around 8 a.m. That's better for the neighborhood noise-wise, and it’s also better for the programming of the club because then they can have more DJs in and sell more tickets.” The result is not just less disturbance, but a resurgence for Amsterdam’s reputation as a nightlife capital.
While he acts as a diplomatic go-between to the city hall, small business owners and disgruntled residents, Milan’s priority “will always be the growth and development of Amsterdam’s nocturnal endeavours and nightlife in general,” he says. This needs a hands-on approach, for which, the night mayor has a team.
An army of 20 red-jacketed ‘Square Hosts’ patrols the streets on weekends between 11pm to 5am to make sure tourists follow the law (no biking after 11 pm, please, and use a loo, not a canal). “Stay classy” is the night mayor’s unofficial motto. Milan and his squad will even suggest places to go, offer directions and help you get around safely. The team is also trained to assist those who’re feeling a sick and to nip drunken brawls in the bud.
Is this too much of nannying for a famously liberal city? “The fact that we exist is a progressive development. We not only advise the municipality, we also give them a hard time sometimes,” Milan’s office says. “We are ‘rebels in suits’. We can be a pain in the neck if we need be, to make more underground voices be heard.”
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This story in 30 seconds
• Since 2003, Amsterdam has had a public official dedicated to making the city thrive after dark
• At around 4am, when the lights go out in the glitzy clubs and revellers are kicked out onto the streets, things tend to turn ugly
• Mirik Milan, a man the city elected as nachtburgmeester, or ‘night mayor’, is finding creative ways to change the perception”much of it well deserved”that Amsterdam’s nightlife is made of drunk, rowdy men
• Amsterdam’s night mayor proposed setting up 10 clubs just outside the city centre, all running 24×7
• An army of 20 red-jacketed ‘Square Hosts’ patrols the streets on weekends between 11pm to 5am to make sure tourists follow the law
• Milan and his squad will even suggest places to go, offer directions and help you get around safely
