Police won’t be peeking into windows over Christmas, but will intervene in extreme cases

Officers will not be checking up on every household over the Christmas holidays, according to the National Police, but in extreme cases of parties breaking coronavirus regulations, they will step in.

While a maximum of three guests will be permitted at your Dutch dinner this Christmas, officers “don’t intend to peek through all the curtains” to check up on this, a spokesman says. (Not that the Dutch ever use their curtains.) “Moreover, a group of ten people can also be a household,” the spokesperson went on.

Illegal parties

Instead, police attention will be directed to parties going excessively over the limits, for example, “twenty people…dancing in the living room”, reports NU.

But even then, police cannot just barge in. “Permission must be requested from the public prosecutor for this. So we cannot just enter a living room to hand out fines,” a spokesperson explained.

Additional pressure

With the hard lockdown and fireworks ban, the main task for police this year will be to maintain public order. Tracking smaller gatherings will therefore not be a high priority for officers. “But if the pressure allows it, we will, of course, maintain it.”

Different police approaches

However, in different municipalities, what is defined as ‘excess’ may differ. For example, Police Chief Wilbert Paulissen (East Brabant) commented that he could accept no more than ten people gathering on New Year’s Eve. “Then we will really ring the bell,” Paulissen told the Eindhovens Dagblad.

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Feature Image: Eugene Zhyvchik/Unsplash

Emily Burger
Emily Burger
Emily grew up in South Africa but has also lived in Egypt, the UK, Canada and now the Netherlands. She first came here for her Bachelors in Arts and Culture at Maastricht University and soon fell in love with the land of canals, clogs and cheese. When she's not daydreaming about sci-fi movies or countries yet to explore, you can find her writing for DutchReview.

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