They've tried over and over again to get the gangs out. Like every couple of years the hippies would tear down the shops and/or barricade the street, but then after a week the pushers would be back. https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/overblik-de-fire-mest-markante-forsoeg-paa-lukke-pusher-street (use your desired translating service, if your elementary schooling didn't include Danish)

It's not the general consensus in Denmark, but to me it has, until recently, always just looked like purely PR related distancing. This time does seem different though.

I don't know what happened, it has been an open secret that the gangs paid money to the Christiania community, and provided other services to the community as well, in an effort to affect the decision making processes https://www.information.dk/indland/2012/06/politiet-rockere-paavirker-christianias-styreform?page=1 (again in Danish, you really should try it out on duolingo) Maybe the gangs stopped, or there were an actual change of opinion in the community.