The Campaign to Stop Newly Proposed Prostitution Laws Hits the Doors along Aurora Avenue

Volunteers wound through the neighborhoods surrounding Aurora Avenue Saturday ahead of a city council committee vote this week on whether to revive Seattle’s prostitution loitering laws and institute a Stay Out of Area Prostitution (SOAP) Zone along seven miles of Aurora. 

I trailed one of the teams and learned that few neighbors knew about the legislation, and that they’d love to learn more, but several of them had urgent matters they needed to attend to at that very moment! So many busy bees live on Aurora! 

But seriously, canvassers managed to persuade more than a few neighbors to hear them out. Over the course of about two hours, the group of 11 volunteers split into five teams, left pamphlets at about 140 doors, and spoke to about 50 neighbors. The door-knockers, who oppose the bill, told residents that the proposal could make it easier for sex traffickers to exploit their victims and result in cops arresting people other than traffickers and johns. They also stressed that if the city council’s public safety committee passes the bill on Tuesday, then the full council could vote on the bill as soon as September 17, leaving opponents very little time to educate the public on the dangers they see in the bill. Given the response we heard at the doors, many people seemed to view the bill as unhelpful and potentially harmful, which contrasted strongly with the neighbors who turned out to support the bill at the last public hearing. 

Madison Zack-Wu, campaign manager for dancer-led advocacy group Strippers Are Workers (SAW), organized the canvas and split off with a team of two other volunteers; an Aurora resident who goes by Peach, and Aaron Banh, a recent UW graduate. The first person who the team talked to at the doors said she’d heard about the legislation and gave a “so-so” hand gesture when asked how she felt about it. That gesture pretty much summed up the reactions of the 12 neighbors Zack-Wu’s group spoke with over the two hours. One person vigorously supported the bill, but, otherwise, neighbors seemed unaware of the legislation or opposed to targeting sex workers for arrest. 

The bill, championed by Council Member Cathy Moore, would make “prostitution loitering” a misdemeanor punishable by up to 90 days in jail and a fine of $1,000. Under the law, cops could arrest people for beckoning to passersby, walking up and speaking to someone in a car, or any behavior that makes someone seem like a sex worker. 

The bill also creates a “promoting prostitution loitering” gross misdemeanor, which carries a punishment of up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine. This provision targets people who, for instance, drop off others for a shift on Aurora or who otherwise supports a person’s sex work. Moore sells this portion of the bill as a way to target pimps and sex traffickers, but advocates fear other sex workers and people who support sex workers may end up arrested under the law. 

Finally, Moore’s bill creates the seven-mile SOAP zone along Aurora Avenue, which would allow judges to order people to stay out of the area as part of pre-trial or sentencing conditions for anyone arrested for or convicted of any prostitution-related crime. Moore amended her original bill to prevent judges from issuing exclusion orders against people only arrested for prostitution loitering. 

In speaking with neighbors, the canvassers countered Moore’s claim that the bill would help address gun violence in the neighborhood, arguing that Moore’s bill fails to address the root causes of gun violence, such as poverty, income inequality, lack of supportive housing, and community support systems, according to analysis from the Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility (AGR). Other problems with the bill include the way it conflates sex work and sex trafficking, which leads to lawmakers creating “misguided” interventions that hurt sex workers but not traffickers. For instance, sex traffickers use fear of criminalization against their victims. When sex workers face arrest from police officers, they’re less likely to turn to law enforcement for help, especially if they’ve already had a bad experience with cops. 

The group’s pamphlets included a “non-exhaustive list” of all the organizations who opposed the bill, including the Harborview Abuse & Trauma Center, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Washington, the Organization for Prostitution Services, the Domestic Abuse Women’s Network, the Coalition Ending Gender-Based Violence, and the King County Department of Public Defense, to name a few. This broad opposition from civil rights groups makes sense, considering that Seattle repealed the law in 2020 after the City proved it disproportionately affected people of color, transgender people, and women. The City also found that the subjective nature of the law resulted in cops arresting people not involved in sex work. 

At one point during the canvass, Zack-Wu and her group spoke with a shirtless man working on installing a security camera outside his home. He raised his concerns about the subjective nature of the law and said that cops would be making arrests based on their impressions rather than evidence of a crime. The man’s wife pulled up to the house midway through the conversation with the volunteers, and the man joked to her that the canvassers had come to talk to him because his shirtlessness might make him a target for cops under the proposed law. Another neighbor brought up a similar concern more seriously, one of the volunteers said. That neighbor said that as a woman of color living in the area, she worried about cops coming up to her and questioning her as she traveled to and from her bus stop.

When neighbors asked what to do if they opposed the bill, or what the group suggested as alternatives, volunteers said they wanted more transparency into how Seattle Police Department (SPD) investigates shootings in the Aurora neighborhood and more evidence from SPD to prove cops already do all they can to curb shootings with current laws. The group also wants the council to increase funding for organizations already doing direct harm-reduction and housing outreach for people in the sex trade, as well as for community-based early intervention gun-violence prevention organizations. Finally, the volunteers suggested that the City could improve safety for the neighborhood by placing Eco Blocks at the entrances to neighborhood streets, which helped curb the number of shootings on 101st Street west of Aurora Ave North. One neighbor seemed interested in testifying against the bill, but they later backed out. Otherwise, a handful of neighbors said they’d review the information and consider sending an email. 

Zack-Wu said her group arrived at these suggestions after speaking with Aurora residents and neighborhood organizations who want to reduce gun violence along the avenue but who oppose the idea of arresting sex workers, especially without funding for sex-worker specific services and diversion programs. However, so far Moore has not added resident suggestions to her recently proposed amendments to the bill, and she has attached zero additional funding for services; her amendments have only firmed up the borders of the SOAP zone and excluded arrested sex workers from being subjected to SOAP zone orders.

Moore’s amendment attempted to address concerns about previous issues involving SPD officers using violence against sex workers and demanding services from them. In her amendment, she included a section that would require SPD to train all officers patrolling the SOAP zone on best practices for working with survivors of commercial sexual exploitation. Moore said the training would be handled by the Seattle Adult Survivors Collaborative (ASC) Task Force, which would include The More We Love and The Silent Task Force. However, when The Stranger asked about how Moore selected these organizations to train SPD and whether the City had gone through a competitive bidding process for these services, a spokesperson for her office said she planned to submit a revised amendment soon that would remove the section about the training and the references to the ASC. 

People interested in submitting public comment on the prostitution loitering law and the SOAP zone can find more information on the city council’s agenda and on the City Clerk’s website. The meeting starts at 9:30 am. Tuesday, and signing up for virtual public comment opens at 8:30 am. For those who want to comment in person, Council Member Bob Kettle suggested people arrive at City Hall between 8:30 am and 9 am.