Pimps ‘are controlling the neighborhood,’ a San Diego business owner warns
Pimps in San Diego are exerting control over neighborhoods by exploiting the fear of retaliation among locals, who remain silent about the presence of nearly-naked women working the streets, according to a business owner situated in a prostitution hotspot.
The business owner, who spoke to US Newzs Digital anonymously, revealed that prostitutes would enter properties and confront business owners and employees, warning them against staring and threatening to involve their pimps if they felt disrespected.
“‘If you’re going to look at me, you got to pay me,'” the prostitutes reportedly intimidate some business owners, using coercion tactics.
The fear of physical violence, property damage, or theft by pimps prevents locals from reporting the situation to the police. Additionally, a law enacted at the beginning of 2023, which restricts police action, further complicates matters.
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“They are controlling the neighborhood,” the business owner remarked regarding the pimps’ influence.
Safer Street Act
In July 2022, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 357, known as the Safer Streets for All Act, which repealed a previous law banning loitering with the intent to engage in prostitution. The bill aimed to protect transgender women, who were reportedly targeted by law enforcement. The law went into effect on January 1, 2023.
Governor Newsom stated, “The author brought forth this legislation because the crime of loitering has disproportionately impacted Black and brown women and members of the LGBTQ community.” He clarified that the bill does not legalize prostitution but rather removes provisions that led to the disproportionate harassment of women and transgender adults. While supporting the bill’s intent, Newsom expressed caution about its implementation. He pledged to monitor crime and prosecution trends to address any unintended consequences.
FBI data indicate that up to 8,000 victims are trafficked annually in San Diego County, including women, underage girls, young boys, and LGBT youths. The San Diego County District Attorney’s website highlights that up to 50% of trafficked youths in the U.S. are boys, primarily aged 11 to 13 if trafficked for sex. The DA’s office also notes that LGBTQ+ youth are 7.4 times more likely to experience sexual violence than their heterosexual and cisgender peers.
That law has since come under fierce fire from locals, elected officials and police who say it has caused prostitution to spiral, as pimps and prostitutes feel emboldened to flagrantly walk the streets without fear of police intervention.
Migrant crisis and cartel influence
The district attorney told US Newzs in a recent interview that the majority of sex trafficking victims on San Diego streets are locals, with approximately 20% brought across the border.
“Cartels have an influence on sex trafficking, but we’re finding that it’s more our street gangs, which work for the cartels,” Stephan told US Newzs earlier this month.
The San Ysidro Port of Entry, situated between San Diego and Tijuana, is the busiest land border crossing in the Western Hemisphere, according to the General Services Administration. Approximately 70,000 vehicles and 20,000 pedestrians cross the border north each day, according to the government agency.
The spike in prostitution and overall crime, according to the San Diego business owner, is a direct result of human trafficking from the southern border. Reports indicate that the city is one of the worst human trafficking hotspots in the U.S.
Stephan stated in her op-ed that when Governor Newsom signed the legislation into law, “he did so with clear trepidation.”
“He made the promise to monitor for unintended consequences and he pledged to act if he saw them,” she said, before calling on the governor “to repeal SB 357 and to also increase penalties for sex buyers who are lining the pockets of traffickers.”
Newsom’s office told US Newzs Digital on Wednesday that the governor’s administration is “closely monitoring the implementation” of the law and is “committed to responding to any unintended consequences.”
“Prostitution is illegal and sex trafficking is a serious and abhorrent crime — as evidenced by ongoing law enforcement operations that occur regularly across California, including the significant arrests and felony charges in San Diego just last week. As the Governor stated when he signed the Safer Streets For All Act, the Administration is closely monitoring the implementation of this particular law, and is committed to responding to any unintended consequences,” the office said.
The San Diego business owner said one of his employees recently witnessed attempted human trafficking first-hand when the employee’s 18-year-old daughter walked out of her father’s apartment to grab something from her car and was approached by a pimp.
The daughter “walked out to pick up something from her vehicle, was approached by a pimp, threatened and [the dad] had to walk out there to rescue her,” the business owner said.
The business owner highlighted that prostitution has long been an issue in San Diego, but was about “5%” or “10%” of what is now seen regularly in America’s Finest City. Prostitution began spiraling the day Newsom signed the bill, even before it took effect last year, according to the business owner and other sources US Digital previously interviewed.
Before the law took effect, “officers had the leverage where they could arrest somebody,” the business owner said, which would cause pimps to move the women to a different location for a week or two before migrating back to the same spot.
“They weren’t brazen and emboldened. They would hide behind the cars or … they would just come out at night,” the business owner said.
Now, even in torrential downpours like those Southern California has experienced in the last week, prostitutes remain stationed on the streets wearing “fishnets and G-strings,” waiting for customers.
Police in San Diego and other prostitution hotspots in the state have conducted extensive sting operations against some of the sex rings, including at a San Diego massage parlor earlier this year that had long been operating a sex-for-pay enterprise. Last month, more than 500 suspected pimps, johns, and sex traffickers were arrested during a statewide anti-human trafficking operation, while dozens of adults and 11 children were rescued from human trafficking.
“The Mayor has offered his full support to SDPD to enforce laws against prostitution and sex trafficking,” San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria’s office told US Newzs Digital.