Part of: Scarce licences
Vlaardingen amusement arcade (2016)
With the judgment of the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State of 2 November 2016 (ECLI:NL:RVS:2016:2927) — known as the Vlaardingen amusement-arcade case — Dutch administrative practice settled that, for scarce licences, government must offer a fair chance, motivate carefully and communicate transparently about the procedure. That line however applies only to genuinely scarce rights — not automatically to coffeeshops.
Council of State 30 April 2025 — Heerlen (ECLI:NL:RVS:2025:1925)
In this case the mayor of Heerlen had limited the term of an implied tolerance declaration to 10 years. The Division ruled that this was proportionate in the circumstances. The ruling has been analysed by Meester Advocaten on behalf of BCD (legal opinion 15 August 2025). The following principles follow from it:
- The Services Directive does not apply to a coffeeshop tolerance declaration — the trade in and sale of cannabis fall outside the EU free-movement freedoms (cf. CJEU, Josemans, C-137/09).
- The Division did not hold that a tolerance declaration is to be equated with a "right", nor that a tolerance declaration is, by definition, a scarce right.
- There is no obligation on mayors to distribute tolerance declarations via a public selection procedure after they expire.
- What does apply: as soon as a municipality caps the number of tolerance declarations, they become factually scarce — and must therefore have a limited term.
- The 10-year term in Heerlen is not a fixed standard. The Division ruled it proportionate only in the given circumstances; with well-substantiated economic arguments (payback period of investments, long-term commitments) a longer term is defensible.
- When testing against the proportionality principle (art. 3:4 Awb) the operator must concretely substantiate which consequences are disproportionate — for instance through statements from an accountant or bookkeeper and insight into costs and long-term obligations.
District Court Midden-Nederland 12 December 2025 (ECLI:NL:RBMNE:2025:7604)
Recently confirmed: a tolerance declaration cannot be regarded as a "scarce public right" within the meaning of EU law. That confirms the starting point that any scarcity for coffeeshops flows from a municipal policy choice — not from an EU-law obligation.