wow, love to hear about the - checks article - campaign by advocates, and not the actual situation ON north Aurora. pretty telling that you have to go outside Seattle to find any reputable information on it and not just the proposed bill (https://www.opb.org/article/2023/12/04/pacific-northwest-sex-trafficking/, https://www.koin.com/news/washington/kidnapping-victims-escape-story-shines-light-on-aurora-avenue-prostitution-market/).
also worth noting that you guys didn't talk to any of the actual girls on Aurora. Just because you white journos rub elbows with sex workers who can navigate respectability politics like SAW doesn't mean you know anything about the situation on the ground

Slow news day?

So... they bothered a lot of people, and most said "I ain't got time for this nonsense," but a few heard them out and made polite neutral sounds like "Hm. Really? You don't say. Well, that's certainly something to think about. Thanks for letting me know, goodbye."

Yeah... I don't think any of them were persuaded.

"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,"

No, the root cause of gun violence is assholes who completely refuse to act in any way consistent with a civilized society. None of the things listed in this quote is any excuse whatsoever to pick up a gun and point it at another person. Period. And if you do that for any reason other than legitimate self-defense, you need to go away for multiple decades or until you are so old and feeble that you can no longer pick up a gun.

Until we get serious about no longer tolerating gun violence, we're gong to be stuck with it.

This door-to-door campaign is guaranteed to generate more sympathy than a campaign where the pimps went door-to-door explaining how the proposed law will negatively impact their business.

I always find TS and the activist argument against these laws to be disingenuous. It basically boils down to if we enforce the law the problem will spread to other areas so until we solve (insert intractable social issue here) we should leave them be and let them do whatever they want. This ignores of course the impacts of concentrating these issues in a single location on the residents and community of that location (a very common theme amongst the activists). It may be true that it will spread it out but it will spread out to different locales and not impact local residents to such a large degree. It also means some of the participants will get tired of being run around and either move on to an entirely different city/state or maybe accept services. In either case general public safety and livability will increase. One thing that is guaranteed is that if you do nothing then nothing will change.

@Well I can offer a professional law enforcement argument against these laws: they commit officers to burning their time hassling small time losers who can't keep track of what street they're on and mostly aren't likely to do much harm other than being eyesores rather than proactive police work to deter or arrest seriously bad guys.

"...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."

When Sawant's crew would dress up homeless persons in her red T-shirts, and have them shout obscenities and threats at Council Members, the Stranger obediently reported her scripted political theatre as spontaneous citizen participation. Now that actual citizens want laws like this, showing up at the Council to so advocate, the Stranger feels the need to report this ineffectual outreach attempt (hat tip @3) as if it matters.

The city cannot decriminalize sex work. Only the state can do that. The Stranger's abolitionist ideology has led to Seattle hosting vast open-air markets in illegal drugs, stolen property, and sex work, with increases in violent crimes as criminals fight over territory. This de facto decriminalization, unlike de jure decriminalization, saves no money, and helps no one but hardened criminals, in this case the pimps who traffic in human beings. The citizens of Seattle have long since tired of these expensively failed and dangerous eyesores, to the point where they are willing to enact illiberal policies in the hope of doing something, anything, about the problem.

This is what your failure looks like, Stranger. Victim-blaming the persons and communities you have harmed with your inflexible dedication to your failed ideology does not change that in the least.

@10 Damn, son. That's just brutal. Accurate, but brutal.

Sigh, @9

@4: Correct. We need to get rid of the pimps, traffickers and their guns.

"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,"

This is just TS boilerplate. And it's one big reason for why problems like gun violence never get solved in this city. The necessary discussions of the problems at hand always seem to get side-tracked to address someone's pet agenda.

The pimps need to go. The prostitutes can stay (conditional on some regulations like zoning and behavior in public spaces). The prostitutes need to not fear the police, so they can turn to them when needed. The pimps need to fear the police. On a security cam video of a night-time shooting on Aurora a few months ago, one could clearly see red and blue flashing reflections off the surrounding buildings. The police were already on the scene and yet the pimps kept shooting. They clearly don't fear the consequences.