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“We wanted to spread out tourists over the city and make the city attractive for a young, creative workforce and reduce brain drain to other cities because they weren’t finding what they needed,” he said.

In Amsterdam, the 24-hour venues are about 20 minutes — about six kilometres — by bicycle. That was once considered way to far to bike to a club. Now people are regularly cycling 20 to 25 minutes at night to get to the venues, Milan said.

What the 24-hour centres do is give people a destination outside the city centre. They also help address the problem of having thousands of people on the street when all the bars and nightclubs close at the same time as they do on Granville.

“You can extend your night a couple of hours if it is a good night, close early if it isn’t,” Milan said about the 24-hour centres. “It gives entrepreneurs more room to try things out.”

The new venues are having a big impact in and outside of Amsterdam.

“Now people are saying that Amsterdam is one of the club capitals of the world,” he said.

While Milan is focused on nightlife entertainment, he sees himself as an advocate for anyone working at night outside of non-traditional nine-to-five hours. He said it’s part of having a 24-hour vision of the city.

“Let us prepare for the future,” he said. “How do we make sure that late-night workers have the same rights as during the day?”

The idea of a night mayor is one that has quickly spread throughout the world. Night mayors, or their equivalents, are now in cities that include New York, London and Paris.

One of Milan’s successes in Amsterdam is the transformation in Rembrandtplein, a 17th-century square in the city centre. The city’s daytime mayor said something had to be done about the 250 incidents a year related to alcohol and violence. The three-year plan that was developed included:

• Removing obstacles in public spaces. One of the most difficult initiatives was convincing Amsterdam residents they could neither park their bikes nor ride them in the plaza and surrounding narrow streets.

• Creating Rembrandtplein Hosts who are on the streets Friday and Saturday nights. They’re social workers with medical training who are skilled at de-escalating situations.

• Creating a mobile website to handle complaints. If there’s an incident, it can be dealt with right away — rather than having an official respond hours or days later when the problem has disappeared.

After two years there has been a 30-per-cent decrease in nuisances, which include littering and shouting, and a 25-per cent drop in alcohol-related incidents from 250 to under 200.

“People in a city really have to work together and find their own strategy,” he said.

kevingriffin@postmedia.com

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