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November
2008
Back
in 2001 UKCIA first carried the story of the "Dutch Experience"
Coffee shop project and as far as we were aware, this was
the first ever such cannabis cafe in the UK. it seems we were
wrong and so we're pleased to set the record straight!
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Britain's
First 'Amsterdam Style' coffee shop actually existed in 1994-1996.
This was way before anyone had heard of Colin Davies and Stockport
tourist office ever had an inquiry about the location of Hooper
Street, before the Dutch Experience cafe was even a pipe dream.
Back
in 1994, eight years prior to the Stockport cafe, graduate
Patrick Hollis was busy putting the pot into the Potteries
as part of the management team at Dreadheads; Britain's first
'Amsterdam Style' coffee shop in Hanley, Hope Street, Stoke
-On- Trent.
Infact
the Dreadheads coffee shop used to bill itself as "The
first and original Amsterdam Style coffee shop in Britain"
Patrick
Hollis who lives in Chorlton, Manchester, is fed up that the
true history of Britain's cannabis coffee shop culture is
being forgotten and rewritten. In an attempt to set the record
straight, Patrick Hollis aged thirty eight, has now written
a film script about the years he spent as a Dreadhead coffee
shop pioneer.
Situated
in Hanley's 'alternative' street; Hope Street, Dreadheads
was also slap bang in the middle of Stoke-On-Trent's 'Red
Light' district.Emerging at a time of Stoke-On-Trent's club
scene prominence - Golden, Sin City,Club Kinetic.The Dreadheads
coffee shop clientelle was to say the least an eclectic mix,
providing material for Patrick to write a film script full
of oddball characters and twisting plots. In the blink of
an eye, nearby, a prostitute would be picking up a client,
drug squad were ordering coffees and wide eyed post Sin City
clubbers would be skinning up left right and centre, chilling
with a cuppa to the Dreadhead in-house DJ's.Customers said
that "You could get high just by licking the walls of
Dreadheads".
"The
Dreadhead experience surprised everyone who was involved with
it" said Patrick.
"Everyday
we expected to get busted and everyday we were amazed we didn't,"
"We
began to think maybe our coffee shop was an experiment, that
the Tory government wanted to see how it would work for us
to run a cannabis coffee shop."
"Policemen
would call in and tell us we needed to get a better lock on
the back door, or that someone needed to move their car from
outside.The coffee shop would be full of people smoking spliffs
but they just never said or did anything."
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Dreadheads
poster
The
Shop
"Come
in for a crafty".
The
cafes motto was "come in for a crafty", and within
months of opening, up to 100 smokers at a time were cramming
into the shop and openly smoking cannabis.
It even had its own "ganga garden".
"In
Winter we would have the door open and it would look like
a settee was on fire with all the smoke belching out of
the shop" said Patrick.
"But
it was never seedy, we had a theatre group, poetry reading
nights and regular DJ's. It was just a happy, chilled-out
place.
Dreadheads
was finally busted by police in July 1996, with quantities
of cannabis seized and owner "Ragga" charged with
allowing premises to be used for the supply of drugs. The
coffee shop never reopened.
Patrick says that "It was incredibly difficult to encapsulate
Dreadheads, and to put it down onto paper.At times I thought
it an impossible task, but through it all was the desire
to tell this true story, to capture something if this remarkable
event; Britains first 'Amsterdam Style' coffee shop, 1994-1996".
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