Preventing scarce permits from becoming the standard instrument — through legal correction, concrete alternatives for municipalities, and sector-wide cooperation.
Increasingly, municipalities are using or moving towards a system of scarce permits for coffeeshops, often assuming this is a legal necessity. This is incorrect. A maximum system and the resulting scarcity are a policy choice, not an obligation derived from law or regulations.
Furthermore, coffeeshops do not operate on the basis of a permit in the sense of the Services Directive, but on the basis of a tolerance statement. Therefore, the doctrine of scarce permits is not directly applicable.
