Open since last October, Centrum (Centre) Maliebaan in the central Dutch city of Amersfoort allows its residents to drink up to five litres of beer on the premises every day, with an hour between each 500 ml (half-quart) serving.
It goes through nearly 4,000 half-litre cans every month, bought at wholesale prices and sold with no mark-up.
“Our main goal is to stop binge drinking: it is better for the individual and for his environment,” the centre’s psychiatrist Eugene Schouten told AFP on a recent visit to the centre, which he believes to be a first for Europe.
To achieve that, “we bind them with beer.”
Based on a Canadian concept, the centre targets the city’s “very worst” alcoholics–those with no family, no work, no home and no desire to stop drinking, said Schouten.
“When alcoholics wake up in the morning, they feel sick. Then they drink until the feeling of sickness passes. Sometimes they drink a whole bottle of Martini or Port in a few seconds, before breakfast,” said the centre’s team leader, Pieter Puijk.
“They get drunk and become a public annoyance: stealing, fighting, shouting. And binge drinking cause serious liver, brain and heart damage.”
Residents of Maliebaan can order their first half-litre of beer from 7:30 am, “just enough to make them feel OK”. They then have to wait an hour for the next hit, with last rounds at 9:30 pm.