City urged to look at prostitution bylaw

B.C.’s second largest city has passed a bylaw designed to move prostitutes out of school zones and neighbourhoods, and a local woman is asking why Prince George can’t do the same.
Passed July 24, the City of Surrey’s prostitution regulation bylaw says, “no person shall provide, seek or obtain prostitution services on a highway within 300 metres of a school” or within “20-metres of a dwelling.” Violators of the bylaw face a fine between $100 and $2000.
“We should have a bylaw like that here,” said Bertine Robertson. “We’ve been trying for about four years.”
The rationale for the bylaw reads, “the existence of such conditions is detrimental to the safety and welfare of other pedestrian and vehicular traffic . . . and contributes substantially and increasingly to the deterioration of neighbourhoods.”
Robertson says she’s written numerous letters to city council asking for help.
She says Brian Skakun has been excellent in trying to get something done about the prostitution problem, but that every time he brings it up in council, it is “shoved under the rug.” She said the problem has moved, “like a cancer” from downtown, to Queensway, and up the hill into the Millar area. She says it is a major problem in four neighbourhoods: Millar, Connaught, Veterans’ Land Act and South Fort George.
“Is Prince George going to be known for our forestry, or are we going to become known as a place to find a prostitute?”
But now that the bylaw has been passed in Surrey, it gives Robertson hope that Prince George could follow Surrey’s lead.
Corporal Tera Roberts of the Surrey RCMP vice unit, says the week-old prostitution regulation bylaw is so new the RCMP has not been able to use it.
“We haven’t been told if we’re going to be using it as a tool, or if it is just bylaw officers,” Roberts said.
She says the bylaw is “definitely a good thing” if it can deter or reduce the number of johns on the street.
Part of the reason prostitution is such a problem, Roberts explains, is because the actual criminal offence is for “communicating for the purposes of prostitution,” and not the act itself. And she hopes the new bylaw will make it easier to crack down on prostitution, but says it is just too new.
“Senior management is looking into it,” Roberts said. “I’m sure it’ll take some time to get things flowing and the whole bylaw into place.”
Bertine Robertson is impressed with Surrey’s initiative in trying to get prostitution away from schools and neighbourhoods.
“Where is our mayor?” Robertson asked. “I could care less about the Winter Olympics. I want my neighbourhood cleaned up. I want the other neighbourhoods cleaned up. I want it a safe place for children.”