Tricks make tix

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by Craig Segal

Sex workers failed in an attempt to go to trial last week to prove police are ticketing them unjustly for bylaw infractions like jaywalking and loitering. Over the last three years, a group of sex workers who refused to pay the tickets handed them over to Stella, a local sex-workers' rights group. Stella hoped to use the case to stop police from ticketing them indiscriminately. But on Halloween, the Crown dropped charges against the group, cancelling 100 tickets worth over $1,000.

"The ticket is nothing more than social control," says Lainie Basman of Stella. Basman says police target sex workers for small infractions like jaywalking as a way to get them to hook elsewhere. "It only moves the problem, so their work is not in the open. That makes it more dangerous for the sex worker."

"The problem is citizens can't tolerate prostitutes near their homes," says Jean-Pierre Synnett, commander of Centre-Sud's Station 21. "All we can do is administer the problem. If a citizen makes a complaint, we have to do something." Synnett says over the last two years police targeted Johns, arresting 500 downtown, as a way to take the pressure off prostitutes. Constitutional lawyer Julius Grey says the current law, which makes prostitution legal and solicitation illegal, does not make sense. "I don't see a law against solicitation as serving much purpose. I think the law is a failure and we should look for alternatives."