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Pimps in San Diego are controlling neighborhoods by leveraging the fear of retaliation against locals in exchange for their silence on the parade of nearly-naked women working the streets, a business owner in the heart of a prostitution hotspot said.
“Prostitutes will walk inside of the properties to say, ‘What are you looking at?,’ ‘quit staring.’ And they elaborate a little bit about calling their pimps in order to hurt them or harm them or do something to ‘take care of them,'” a San Diego business owner who spoke to Fox News Digital under the condition of anonymity said of how prostitutes in San Diego near the National City border speak to business owners and employees.
“‘If you’re going to look at me, you got to pay me,'” the prostitutes reportedly tell some business owners in an apparent act of intimidation.
The business owner said the threat of pimps carrying out physical attacks, destroying property or stealing keeps locals quiet from going to the police. Residents and businesses also don’t flag police when tensions flare due to a law that took effect at the start of 2023, which the business owner – and others across the state – says has tied the hands of police from making arrests.
“They are controlling the neighborhood,” he said of the pimps.
Safe Streets Act an ‘utter failure’
In addition to repealing the law, the business owner argued that johns should increasingly face prosecution in order to move the needle on the skyrocketing prostitution issue, and wants to see conviction rates increase in the City of San Diego, which is overseen by the city attorney, not DA Stephan.
“If you would put some pressure on the johns, then you’re taking away the customer base, and that’s your supply and demand. If you don’t have the johns, then there’s nobody paying the prostitutes and they can’t pay the pimps,” the business owner said.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at a news conference in Sacramento, Calif., Thursday, March 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
The business owner added that this law has allowed the prostitution business to boom, while young children living in San Diego neighborhoods are forced to walk over used “byproducts” from prostitutes on their way to school, and even see the women wearing skimpy outfits while they’re on the bus.
“Listen to all the DAs across the state,” the business owner said when asked if he has a message for Newsom. “This is an utter failure. It’s not helping, it’s hurting. The human trafficking aspect is hurting the girls that are on the streets. It’s given the pimps much more ability … to gather more unfortunate ladies in order to bring them out on the streets. So I think what they set out to do has accomplished the exact opposite.”
“Why is it that we have to talk in anonymity without our names? If this is the Safer Streets Act, how come everybody that’s complaining about this doesn’t feel safe?”
