Introduction

The Johns

The Results

The Media

Links

The following is a brief history of the occurences of the last three months prior to the website's launch.

We knew quite early on that if we were going to rid ourselves of the prostitutes in our area we would need to remove the customer base. For more than two months, license plate numbers and photographs were taken of passing johns. An increase rather than a decrease occurred in the number of prostitutes and their pimps.

During this time, groups discussed the problem without any real direction. At this particularly low point, the Calgary Vice-Squad was invited to a community meeting with approximately 15-20 people in attendance. Our situation was conveyed and the police representatives were empathetic, but only able to provide printed material to "better understand the prostitution problem." We were in the middle of it however, and understood it well. The police were unable to do anything in any short term capacity without more officers and less constraining laws.

Our Alderman, Jon Lord, was also asked to help us in this situation. He also expressed empathy and wanted to send information about prostitution in other areas, but he reiterated that the laws were not in place to help us.

Two weeks after our meeting with the Vice-Squad, the community watched another expected increase in prostitution due to Stampede. The pimps had brought in more girls due to a higher volume of traffic. Our community and the police both predicted this to happen, but it was still upsetting. Our community began to feel that the system of politicians and law enforcement were simply unable to help us.

Three months of low-tech tactics of marching and making noise, as the Calgary Herald editors suggest in their August 11th editorial, resulted only in an increase rather than a decrease in prostitution. We needed to rethink a solution before the situation became worse.