It looks like Amsterdam is taking a page from Los Angeles' marijuana scene.

Like pot shops in L.A., that city's 220 coffee shops will defy home-country federal law which has banned such weed-selling; the city's mayor says they'll stay open after the law takes effect Jan. 1.

Whew, said every tourist who ever went to the Netherlands:

Amsterdam's mayor let this defiance be known in an interview with the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant this week.

He said if the shops shut down “the 1.5 million tourists will not stay.”

For sure.

“They will swarm all over the city looking for drugs.”

True. Or, they'll come to L.A.

What really suprised us about this pronouncement is that Amsterdam has only 220 coffee shops.

By some estimates, including the city's own, L.A. has more than 1,000 dispensaries. We kind of passed up Amsterdam's retail scene a while back.

We just need more young people to come here for our permissive bud scene. Oh yeah, the already do. It's called Venice.

Read more at the New York Times.

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