Amsterdam will close nearly 20 per cent of its marijuana cafes to comply with a national ban on having them near schools.
Mayor Job Cohen announced his decision to close the so-called coffee shops before the opening of a "weed summit" of representatives of major Dutch cities who are debating the nation's long-standing tolerance policy.
Marijuana is technically illegal but it can be sold in small amounts in designated cafes without fear of prosecution.
More than a quarter of the country's coffee shops are in Amsterdam, where they are a major tourist attraction.
Amsterdam spokeswoman Iris Reshef said the city doesn't have major problems with coffee shops, but had sent letters to 43 shops located within 250 metres of a high school that they will have to close by the end of 2011 if they cannot successfully appeal the decision.
The cafes slated for closure include some landmarks, such as The Bulldog - a high-traffic shop operating on one of the city's main squares since 1985.
The summit is also expected to address problems in border cities. They complain they are saddled with disproportionate problems as a result of German, French and Belgian "drug tourists" who come just to stock up on marijuana - often finding ways to bypass a five gram purchase limit.
Some cities are so fed up they've begun shutting all coffee shops.
"If the border areas shut down tomorrow, then (inland cities) Den Helder and Almere will soon be suffering and that's not good," said mayor Geert Leers of the southern border city Maastricht.
Another issue under consideration was the policy of routinely arresting growers, which leaves the coffee shops with no way to legally source their most lucrative product.
Reshef said the city advocates expanding the tolerance policy to include growers, which she said would help keep organised crime out.
"We don't have any insight to what goes on behind the back door," she said. "What we need is a closed supply chain."
Polls suggest most voters support decriminalising marijuana cultivation, but the coalition government is led by the conservative Christian Democrats, which opposes it.
The Dutch parliament voted to regulate growers once before in 2005, but the government refused, saying it would lead to a confrontation with the European Union. Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin said on Thursday he had "no intention" of changing national marijuana policy.
According to data compiled by the Netherlands' Trimbos Institute for Mental Health and Addiction, after 30 years of the Dutch tolerance policy, usage rates in the country are somewhere in the middle of international norms - above those in Germany and the Scandinavian countries, but below those of France, Britain and the United States.
