Alcoholics in Amsterdam receive beer to clean streets

(UPI) -- Amsterdam is putting their resident alcoholics to work by offering them beer and cigarettes to clean the city's streets.

A few resident alcoholics are being offered 10 euros a day, a half packet of rolling tobacco, and five cans of beer per day. The men are allowed to drink two in the morning, one at lunch, and another two after work.

"This group of chronic alcoholics was causing a nuisance in Amsterdam's Oosterpark: fights, noise, disagreeable comments to women," Gerrie Holterman, head of the Rainbow Foundation told AFP. She added that the goal was to keep the men occupied and away from trouble.

There are about 20 men in total who are split into two groups. They each work three days a week.

The men interviewed by AFP said that the incentive to show up was the beer. Chronic alcoholics struggle to function without alcohol, they said.