Underground Coffee Shops in London?
April 25, 2019 1:54 AM Subscribe
Way back in 1999, I was lucky enough to stumble on a full, real, "coffee shop" in Central London. A tiny and illicit slice of Amsterdam. Do such places still exist?
I want to give some back story to qualify this question. I am not interested in engaging in any illegal activity, I am idly curious for cultural and political reasons.
I lived for one summer, 1999, in London. I was summer temp relief at a big language school.
Being an outsider I was never able to find a scene and was clean and sober the vast bulk of my time there.
But as luck would have it, on the penultimate day of my time there, two of my Brazilian students took me out for a night on the town, and once our mutual interest was established we were almost immediately sitting in a full on coffee shop, with menus, crammed with happy stoned patrons smoking herb. It was before I saw any Guy Ritchie films but now, in retrospect, it was almost like the boxing club in the movie - multiple heavy doors with huge security men. But once inside, wow, holy shit!
So I will be in London in a couple of weeks... and I am just idly curious if such establishments still exist, and more generally what is the current state of the black/grey market in weed in London.
Many many thanks in advance for any info dudes!
I want to give some back story to qualify this question. I am not interested in engaging in any illegal activity, I am idly curious for cultural and political reasons.
I lived for one summer, 1999, in London. I was summer temp relief at a big language school.
Being an outsider I was never able to find a scene and was clean and sober the vast bulk of my time there.
But as luck would have it, on the penultimate day of my time there, two of my Brazilian students took me out for a night on the town, and once our mutual interest was established we were almost immediately sitting in a full on coffee shop, with menus, crammed with happy stoned patrons smoking herb. It was before I saw any Guy Ritchie films but now, in retrospect, it was almost like the boxing club in the movie - multiple heavy doors with huge security men. But once inside, wow, holy shit!
So I will be in London in a couple of weeks... and I am just idly curious if such establishments still exist, and more generally what is the current state of the black/grey market in weed in London.
Many many thanks in advance for any info dudes!
Best answer: Following a link from that article, I notice that Vice also reported on the UK’s coffeeshops in 2017.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 11:42 AM on April 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by chappell, ambrose at 11:42 AM on April 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 11:37 AM on April 25, 2019 [2 favorites]