Amsterdam club De School announces permanent closure

Amsterdam’s De School has announced permanent closure.

The dutch club, which closed its doors at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, has now released a statement confirming permanent closure of the club, and citing mounting debts and other financial difficulties.

“New reports arrived at the end of last week, the first to show the new situation since we were forced to close in March,” Jochem Wertheime, De School’s owner, said in the statement. “Unfortunately, the situation is much worse than we expected. The bottom line is that the debts accumulate not only due to personnel costs, but also other rising costs. We are now making this difficult decision to avoid a total bankruptcy of our company Post CS (11, Trouw).”

“Since the club closed in March, we’ve done everything we can to keep staff on the job and pay them. We were ambitious and hopeful about the future. But the increase in the number of COVID-19 cases and the lack of perspective has forced us to cancel all contracts and the club will cease to exist. The bar, terrace and restaurant will remain open.”

Earlier this month, De School addressed accusations of racial injustice and sexual harassment in a live podcast recorded from the club. Members of the senior team, including club owner Jochem Doornbusch, programmer Luc Mastenbroek and HR manager Lon, took part in a panel discussion about the allegations against the club. The discussion was moderated by Souhayla Ou-Oumar, and entitled ‘Taking Responsibility’.