Christiania: Copenhagen’s hippie community stands up to drug gangs

For more than 50 years, the Christiania hippie quarter in the heart of the Danish capital, Copenhagen, has been a haven for an unconventional society. Popular with tourists, it is known for its liberal attitude towards cannabis and its notorious drug market, Pusher Street.

However, in recent years the community has become a hotbed for organized crime and drug gangs as they have gained more and more power resulting in increased violence within the community with residents shaken and deciding to take action.

Now fed up and fed up, they decided to take action and take matters into their own hands, and so on Saturday, armed with shovels, hoes and crowbars, they began tearing up Pusher Street.

To the sound of celebratory applause and bystanders cheering “Christiania,” the locals removed and lifted the stones from the cobblestone alley and dropped them onto carts, one by one.

Now this 100m stretch of road has a new sign that reads: “Pusher Street Closed Today”.

“We broke up Pusher Street. It closes today. So it’s kind of a closing party,” said resident Pia Jagger, carrying a large stone.

“For the last five or six years I haven’t come here often because I have children and I didn’t feel very safe,” said Sophie Ostergaard. “Today I brought all three and they are helping,” he added.

Standing next to a rainbow-coloured bicycle, resident Hulda Mander, 40, told the BBC: “I feel like it’s a historic moment. We are very happy about that.”

A spokeswoman for Christiania’s press team, Mander, said: “We’re so tired of people saying Pusher Street is Christiania. Is not”.

Although illegal in Denmark, cannabis has been freely sold in Christiania for decades.

“The point we made is enough”

But many of the original local traders have been driven out as organized gangs have taken control. Over the past three years, there have been a spate of stabbings and shootings, many of which have been fatal.

According to Mander the turning point for the community was about a year and a half ago. “Two people came and started shooting. One person was killed and four others were injured. That was the absolute point where we said enough is enough.”

“We will bury it. We will change all the infrastructure. Then we will start building other things,” he added.

“For us hashish is not the problem, but the money around it,” Mette Prag, spokeswoman for the Freetown Christiania Foundation, told reporters.

“But in recent years with all the violence and fighting, we can’t have that in our society. That is why now this chapter must end,” he added.

Residents of Christiania dig the alleys in Pusher Street, Copenhagen (Credit: Ritzau Scanpix/Ida Marie Odgaard via REUTERS)

In the mobilization that took place on Saturday, the Minister of Justice of Denmark, Peter Hummelgaard, was also present.

“This is a day that marks the beginning of the end for the very, very deep roots that organized crime gangs have built in this neighborhood of Copenhagen,” he said.

“To ensure that Christiania continues to be a vibrant, colorful, creative part of Denmark, it must be a place without organized criminal gangs,” he added.

Five different gangs on Pusher Street

Tourists are still welcome to visit Christiania, he added, but not for drugs.

Usually this neighborhood is the epicenter of the cannabis trade in Denmark, where so-called vape shops sell weed behind makeshift stacks of beer crates and plywood counters with names like Green Rocket and Blue Dream.

Until the late 1990s it was unofficially tolerated, said Kim Meller, a professor of criminology at Malmö University. But that ended in the 2000s as the market grew and became more visible.

According to him, about five different gangs are now active and this has brought more controversy.

“If you have a conflict between gangs in Copenhagen, chances are they’ll be on Pusher Street, where they can shoot each other,” said police officer Simon Hansen, who oversees the Copenhagen police operation in Christiania.

Still as he said, often the people who staff these stores get trapped. “Sometimes it’s kids. Sometimes people who have a disability and people who can’t find a job,” Hansen said.

Residents of Christiania dig the alleys in Pusher Street, Copenhagen (Credit: Ritzau Scanpix/Ida Marie Odgaard via REUTERS)

Police have repeatedly raided Pusher Street, but traders keep coming back. “We clean out stores 100 times a year,” Hansen added.

“That sounds like pushing the same rock up a mountain. But we don’t want the shops to develop into small houses and sheds”, he added.

“The perfect hippie dream”

A kilometer from the Danish parliament, Freetown Christiania was founded in 1971 when a group of anarchists and hippies occupied an abandoned and empty military base.

There he created an independent community, with its own rules and flag. There is no leader and decisions are made by consensus at community meetings. The Danish state eventually accepted Christiania as a radical “social experiment”, later giving it legal status.

Gallerist Marios Orozco moved to the community from the US in 1981 when he was 19 years old. “I had long hair and found Christiania to be the perfect hippie dream,” she told the BBC.

“You can imagine a village full of people who didn’t fit into society. There were bikers, hippies and nudists running around. It was kind of like a chaotic piece of heaven,” he added.

Residents of Christiania dig the alleys in Pusher Street, Copenhagen (Credit: Ritzau Scanpix/Ida Marie Odgaard via REUTERS)

Today 1,000 residents, including 250 children, live in the graffiti-covered barracks and wooden houses along Copenhagen’s historic ramparts. With music stages, vegetarian cafes and souvenir shops, it is also one of the country’s top tourist destinations.

Cooperation with the Authorities

Christiania is often at odds with the authorities and has long resisted attempts to close Pusher Street. But last August residents agreed it must go.

In a remarkable turnaround, they worked for several months with Copenhagen Mayor Sophie Hestrup Andersen, Justice Minister Hummelgaard and the police on a new plan.

“As a city, we can’t live with violence, and the locals in Christiania couldn’t live with it, but were afraid to do something radical about it,” the mayor said.

Residents of Christiania dig the alleys in Pusher Street, Copenhagen (Credit: Ritzau Scanpix/Ida Marie Odgaard via REUTERS)

“I told them I would support them. Now we have a plan and we are taking the first step,” he added.

This isn’t the first time residents in Christiania have tried to keep gangs out of the community. Last August Pusher Street was blocked off with containers and concrete blocks, but traders soon returned.

Doubts and uncertainty

However, there are also those who are wary of Saturday’s initiative and believe that it will not work.

“If this eventually succeeds and they manage to disperse the traffickers, it won’t be in one area, it will be in many areas,” Orozco stressed.

The issue of traders spreading to the rest of Copenhagen is something that is often discussed.

“We’re not trying to let anyone get the idea that this is going to kill the illegal drug market. “The police themselves believe that they will have an easier job fighting the illegal drug trade and related crimes if everything is not centralized,” Hummelgaard said.

Residents of Christiania dig the alleys in Pusher Street, Copenhagen (Credit: Ritzau Scanpix/Ida Marie Odgaard via REUTERS)

More than five decades after its creation, the community still survives, although its future faces more uncertainty.

As well as the closure of Pusher Street, new plans to revitalize the area include a major social housing development. But others fear it will hurt the community’s identity.

“They want to build 300 apartments. This will destroy the atmosphere of this place,” Orozco said.

Residents of Christiania dig the alleys in Pusher Street, Copenhagen (Credit: Ritzau Scanpix/Ida Marie Odgaard via REUTERS)

New art spaces, playgrounds and shops are among the ideas for what could eventually replace Pusher Street. “We will restart the workplaces, the cultural spaces,” said Mete Prag, but also on the cards is possibly a new name for the street.