ALMERE — Almere’s mayor has extended the temporary Beleidsregel samenscholing en ongeregeldheden Almere centrum by one year, to 24 August 2027. It is not a permanent ban. The first six-month window, opened 24 February 2026 with police and the Public Prosecution Service (OM), would have expired on 24 August 2026.
In a 20 August 2026 letter to the municipal council, Hein van der Loo (LOOH) — party-independent Burgemeester of Almere — says care and safety partners still report a noticeable effect on group-linked public-order disruption in the city-centre. The rule clarifies how police apply the existing assembly ban in the APV when disorder is imminent or underway.
What the rule does — and does not claim
The policy is one tool inside a broader centre overlast package first shared with the council in December 2025. It gives officers a clearer framework for when and how to act on samenscholing under the APV, after police asked for unambiguous instructions. The mayor frames it as legal certainty for residents and businesses as much as an enforcement lever.
Since 24 February 2026, police say they checked more than 100 people in groups after reports of assembly, unacceptable behaviour or disorder in Almere Stad centre. Everyone first received an order to leave; 56 people received a fine; two were arrested after a check. Enforcement ran on thirteen occasions between 25 February and 10 August 2026, typically after reports of groups of ten to thirty people linked to vandalism, intimidation or violence.
The letter stresses a complaint-driven, reactive posture — a deliberate safeguard, with police and OM, against ethnic profiling. Youth officers and youth BOAs say the centre is quieter on overlast even though young people still gather, usually without disturbing order. Several centre entrepreneurs, including on Stadhuisplein, report less nuisance. Care partners say the approach helped against groups that had started to “settle” on particular spots.
Partner feel vs flat registration counts
That partner picture is the mayor’s main case for extension. The same letter is careful on numbers. Total police registrations of public-space overlast in the centre for March–June 2026 show no visible drop versus the prior year pattern the municipality charted. Van der Loo writes that was not the expectation: the rule is not a standalone fix for all centre nuisance, and higher police presence can raise reporting willingness.
In other words, the extension rests on qualitative feedback from police, youth work, care partners and traders — not on a clean fall in the aggregate overlast tally. Flat totals and “it works on the street” can both be true if the instrument only bites the serious group-disorder slice of a wider nuisance series.
Still temporary through 2027
With police and OM, the mayor chose a longer but still bounded period: one more year of experience in the centre and events area, alongside other preventive and repressive measures. Substance of the rule is unchanged; wording was tightened so the designated area is clearer. Partners have been informed. Before 24 August 2027 — or earlier if needed — findings go back to the council. The letter ends by repeating that the beleidsregel remains temporary and will stay under review.
Tape: LOOH lists on PolitiCap
On PolitiCap’s civic market, LOOH is the politician ticker for Almere’s mayoral office — the public-order face of the city, not a party-list franchise. Desk Politi IPO has made LOOH tradeable at open Ƀ0.50 (R score 0.05 on the mcap-1.5 city-mayor track vs the TRUMPD norm), Politi Market Cap Ƀ500 000 on 1 000 000 authorized shares, 20% public float. Quotes are virtual DutchBud / dibs (virtual credits in the closed loop) — a game layer for crowd attention and an accountability signal, not a cash market and not a municipal channel.
Players can read the extension as a sitting-mayor policy bet: does prolonging a harsh assembly tool hold local legitimacy when partner stories and registration charts diverge? Cast the desk poll, mark virtual stakes on LOOH if the Almere home market is your node, and treat the 2027 review date as the next hard checkpoint on the tape.
Source: Gemeente Almere (council letter 20 August 2026). Rewritten for the PolitiCap game.
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