Mellow Yellow coffeeshop legislation in Amsterdam requiring 28 coffeeshops located within 250 meters of schools to close. The owner protested that the school was a hairstyling academy with students generally over the age of 18, but the Amsterdam government still required its closure, in part to protect the remaining coffeeshops in Amsterdam from the requirements used in other parts of the Netherlands which bar foreigners from cannabis coffeeshops. The owner Johnny Petram stated his hope that he would be able to reopen Mellow Yellow at a new location. Mellow Yellow coffeeshop Mellow Yellow was the oldest cannabis coffee shop in Amsterdam, prior to
Mellow Yellow (album) previously illustrated his infatuation with an ability to define the mid-sixties pop music scene. On "Mellow Yellow" this is still evident in "Sunny South Kensington", "Museum" (originally recorded for the "Sunshine Superman album" and rerecorded for "Mellow Yellow") and the title track, but is also tempered with world-weary observations of that scene ("Young Girl Blues"). The contractual problems that prevented the release of Donovan's music in the UK led him to write such songs as the resigned "Writer in the Sun", where he contemplates the possibility of his own forced retirement from the music industry at the age of 20.