Tag Archives: prostitution

SODA and SOAP — Seattle City Council approves return of exclusion zones including new Capitol Hill ‘Stay out of Drug Area’

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The Harvard Market shopping center which has wrestled with increasing challenges around drug crimes at the corner of Broadway and Pike is within the new Capitol Hill SODA borders

Capitol Hill will have a new “Stay out of Drug Area” covering the neighborhoods around Capitol Hill Station and Cal Anderson Park and Seattle will re-implement exclusion laws hoped to throttle drug and prostitution-related crimes in new zones across the city.

In a five hour session Tuesday filled mostly with public testimony against the laws and with a phalanx of security and police officers called in to quell any disruptive protest in chambers, the Seattle City Council voted to approve the twin bills re-creating the city’s SODA and “Stay out of Area Prostitution” zones — regulations repealed by the council only four years ago after years of criticism over their ineffectiveness and dangerous implications for the victims of sex work-related crime they were supposed to be helping.

The new zones will be located on Capitol Hill, and in the International District, Belltown, the University District, and Pioneer Square with the new SOAP zone covering Aurora. More could be added.

Bob Kettle, chair of the council’s public safety committee, said Tuesday night after the successful vote that this new push for SODA and SOAP will be different than the city’s past attempts at exclusion zones. “This legislation uses a data driven approach to achieve the goals in our Strategic Framework plan,” Kettle said. “I am appreciative for the support our legislation has received from the community and my colleagues, and I am grateful for the opportunity to make Seattle safer.”

Under the legislation passed Tuesday, a designation will allow a judge to bar drug or prostitution law offenders busted in a zone from reentering the area for up to two years. A SODA or SOAP order can also be imposed as a condition of release from jail. Violating an order will become a new gross misdemeanor, punishable by up to 364 days in jail and a $5,000 fine. Continue reading →

Symposium puts Seattle sex workers front and center

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3Ei3yWH0It may be the world’s oldest profession, but sex work and its modern practitioners may also be the least understood. A five day conference in Seattle is attempting to turn that around and elevate the voices and concerns of people with “sexy professions.”

The second annual Seattle Annual Sex Worker Symposium will take place this week with private and public events held on and around Capitol Hill. Admission for most events is donation based. The conference kicks off Wednesday night at 8th and Seneca’s Town Hall where a panel of sex workers and activists will take “a hard look at the history of prostitution prohibition, and the effects that criminalization has had on people and communities who engage in the sex trade by choice, circumstance, or force.”

SASS is put on by the Sex Workers Out Reach Project, a national sex workers advocacy organization founded in 2002. Seattle-based president Savannah Sly said this week’s conference seeks to break the stereotype that sex work is only about human trafficking and high-end escorts.

HalfFliers“We see a constant need to have sex workers speak from their own platforms,” Sly said. “(SASS) allows people from all over the sex industry to present their own reality in their own words.”

SWOP casts a wide net when it comes to defining sex work. Sexy jobs may include “escorting, stripping, professional domination and submission, porn performing, peep show dancing, sacred intimacy, phone sex, and web camming, and more.”

A downtown rally and march for sex workers’ rights is planned for Thursday and a community health fair will be held Friday at Capitol Hill’s Gay City. On Sunday, SASS will screen a series of short films by sex workers at Central Cinema.

And while the conference will address sex work’s serious political and social issues, SASS organizers are also tapping into the fun side of the trade. The Harlot’s Ball will feature DJs, kinky performers, face painting, and a safe sex kissing booth at The Lo-Fi.

Tickets are still available online and many events are free or cost flexible. Here is the schedule of events.