The Seattle City Council passed two new laws on Tuesday meant to crack down on public drug use and sales and on prostitution. The second, which establishes a prostitution loitering law and a Stay Out of Area of Prostitution SOAP zone along Aurora Avenue in north Seattle, is intended to have a similar effect on prostitution and related violence.
It was sponsored by Councilmember Cathy Moore and passed 8 to 1, with Morales again the lone no. Supporters, including business owners and residents around the SODA and SOAP zones, acknowledge that the zones and loitering bans are not a silver-bullet solution, but argue that they are necessary to disrupt entrenched drug markets and prostitution around the city. Seattle has experimented with SODA zones in decades past, and had a prostitution loitering law on the books.
The City Council voted unanimously in to repeal its prostitution law, citing its disproportionate impact on low-income people and people of color.
Seattle Municipal Court judges cannot impose SODA bans on people charged with or convicted of drug dealing because dealing is a felony and the purview of the King County Prosecutor.
Courtesy of the Seattle City Council. The analysis continues that exclusion orders may encourage recidivism without addressing underlying drug dependency; could just move drug markets elsewhere in the city; and could open the door for discriminatory policing. Neighbors have been assaulted, placed under constant threat and unable to have community.
