No, this is not a joke. The person in charge of a park in Berlin has introduced a remarkably new practice. To limit nuisance in Gorlitzer Park in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district, he has marked fixed places where drug dealers can stand.

The idea comes from park manager Cengiz Demirci. Over the years, Gorlitzer Park has become a gathering place for drug addicts in Berlin. By creating permanent places for dealers, he wants to put things in order. Even residents who want to walk their dogs or mothers with their children can enjoy the park.

The park manager painted spaces marked in pink on the sides of a walkway at an entrance to the park. “Two people can stand here,” he said in Abendschau. On the other side is also a box where dealers can stand. “This is not about legalizing drugs,” he says. “But in this way, we prevent other visitors to the park from being accosted.”

Work permit

Both politicians and police are said to have given up the fight against drugs in the vicinity of the park for years so that drugs are tolerated in practice. The proposal has not yet been responded by the police. The CDU expressed all its criticism. “This is an invitation to break the law,” it sounds. The greens remained flat. “We have to take reality into account,” they say. “If we ban drugs from this park, they just pop up elsewhere.”

According to park manager Cengiz Demirci, this mainly concerns illegal African drug dealers. “The problems here can only be stopped by giving them a work permit,” he says. “Then they would immediately stop selling drugs.”

Whether the drug dealers involved are themselves willing to take a seat within the pink boxes is not immediately clear.