Some ads for sex workers both inside and outside the US were showing up in Instagram stories recently, and though they've been removed it certainly reveals a flaw in how such ads are being screened.

The paid ads, which linked to channels on the Telegram app that promoted escort and sex-worker services, were discovered by CBS News. Some of the ads were being promoted by an account with the name Royal Garden Club that had over 100,000 followers, and that advertised "services for wealthy men" in its bio. It has since been removed.

The account appears linked to Royal Garden, an escort service maybe based in Instanbul that uses Telegram for its promotions, and is billed as a "premium dating agency for wealthy men." CBS said it found a company called R GARDEN LLP that was based in London, and the Telegram channel had ads written in both English and Russian.

Per CBS, the Telegram channel claims to provide access to "over 7,000 girls worldwide for fun dates, relationships and hot sex."

A website with the misleading, misspelled URL royalgardem.site appears to be associated with the same outfit, and says it offers "forbidden opportunities unavailable elsewhere" via Telegram. The list of US cities out of which they say they operate includes San Francisco, as well as LA, Las Vegas, Seattle, Miami, and New York.

Meta spokesperson Erin Logan confirmed to CBS News that the company had removed any accounts associated with those Instagram ads, due to clear violations of its policy against advertising any sort of "commercial sexual activity."

As CBS notes, Telegram does not have any content moderation or ad policies beyond "illegal pornographic material."

Local police departments in the Bay Area have long been aware of sex workers using social media to advertisers, and sex traffickers using social platforms as well.

The Sacramento Police Department conducted a sting operation on October 31 2023, Operation Trick R Treat, which targeted traffickers. The department said it regularly saw 24,000 escort ads in the area each month.

A 28-year-old San Francisco man was recently arrested and charged for an attack in Hayward where he allegedly grabbed and threatened a woman on Jackson Street, shouting “I’m a pimp” as he tried to force her into prostitution, according to police.

As Bay Area News Group reports, Hayward police say Taz Guest spotted his 24-year-old victim walking home around 10:20 p.m. on May 30 and followed her onto the 100 block of Jackson Street. When she rebuffed his advances and said “no,” officers allege Guest grabbed her breast and reached for her pants.

“He screamed ‘I’m a pimp,’ claimed he was armed, and threatened to kill her,” according to a Hayward Police Department statement. The woman fought back by hurling a can of Red Bull and striking Guest until he fled.

Guest was arrested on June 4. In a recorded police interview, he’s accused of admitting to the assault and threats but denying any sexual intent. Investigators noted Guest’s detailed knowledge of the local sex trade — terminology and known street corners — which matched the victim’s account.

He now faces felony counts of assault, criminal threats, and sexual battery. Bail is set at $200,000.

A defense motion ahead of Monday’s bail hearing claims Guest is unlikely to reoffend and questions whether Jane Doe clearly saw her attacker. Prosecutors counter that the victim’s prompt 911 call, physical evidence of her injuries, and Guest’s alleged own statements provide clear probable cause.

If convicted, Guest could serve up to several years in state prison.

Hayward Detective Lt. Maria Alvarez reminded the public that assaults targeting pedestrians remain a concern citywide. “We encourage anyone who feels unsafe walking alone at night to call us immediately,” she said, urging witnesses to come forward.

Guest’s attorney has not responded to requests for comment. Meanwhile, the victim is recovering from bruises and psychological trauma, according to court records. Her case will proceed through Alameda County Superior Court, where a judge will soon decide whether to lower Guest’s bail.

Image: Ritchie Quintero/Getty

San Francisco police are touting a new round of pointless arrests that they made last week during an eight-day operation to discourage sex work in a section of the Mission District where it has basically existed, undeterred, for three decades or more.

The sting operation was conducted over eight nights, between Wednesday, May 8 and Sunday, May 19, partly using plainclothed officers, the SFPD explains in a release. The main focus was on Shotwell Street between 18th Street and 21st Street, and they also kept tabs on a secondary location at South Van Ness and 18th Street.

This resulted in 30 arrests — 17 of whom were johns, and 13 of whom were sex workers. Ten of those arrested were SF residents, while the other 20 were from elsewhere in the Bay Area or from out of state.

"Mission Police Station will continue to patrol and conduct operations in this neighborhood which is being negatively impacted by the increased foot traffic of illegal sex workers and vehicles," the SFPD says in a statement. "This flow of people committing crimes from littering used condoms, double parking, and blocking roadways in addition to the acts of prostitution has created hazardous street conditions for those who live and work in the area."

SFPD officers conducted a similar operation in March 2023, arresting 30 johns on Capp Street — where much of this sex work activity had been going on before the city installed traffic-blocking barriers there. Neighbors had complained for years about the sanctioned red-light district that existed here, but some also noted that if the city put up barriers on Capp Street, the activity would likely just move over to Shotwell, with the two alley streets often trading off being hot spots over the decades.

The latest crackdown, which may ultimately do very little to stop sex workers from plying their trade in the area, comes after a video was publicized in early April showing a daytime fight between three women on Shotwell, two of whom were believed to be sex workers.

District 9 supervisor candidate Trevor Chandler seized on the video, saying he was "incredibly disturbed at the lack of seriousness from City Hall on" the trouble caused by illegal sex work. And, Chandler said, "Shotwell neighbors have raised the alarm for years about increasing violence from sex trafficking on their street but have regularly been ignored."

Of course, Shotwell neighbors were likely happier when all this was going on a couple blocks away on Capp, as it was until early last year.

Chandler is calling for "true penalties" for both johns and pimps, but it's not at all clear that District Attorney Brooke Jenkins will seek such penalties.

Mission Station Captain Gavin McEachern admitted in a public meeting two years ago that there had been a lapse in enforcement during the pandemic that had allowed the sex trade to get out of hand on Capp Street.

"We do think there has been a hiatus of enforcement for a period of time, and we’re looking forward to changing that dynamic," McEachern said.

The police would likely have been quick to blame former DA Chesa Boudin, who pledged not to prosecute prostitution-related cases.

D9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen, who is termed out this year, has previously called for the legalization of sex work in the city, which would allow city officials to regulate it — and, presumably, move it somewhere less residential.

The SFPD says now that they will continue to "hold those accountable for their actions who are coming into our neighborhoods to commit crimes and disturb the peace."

Previously: The SFPD Brags About Busting Johns Seeking Sex Workers on Capp Street

A broad daylight assault involving two female suspects and one female victim who may be unhoused has neighbors on Shotwell Street newly complaining about the rampant sex trade happening there.

As we've heard since the city put up traffic barriers on a couple of blocks of Capp Street a year ago, the street-level sex-work activity on that street has disappeared. But as many predicted it would, the sex-work didn't go away, it just moved a couple of blocks over to Shotwell Street, where it continues to this day.

But a weekend assault that was caught on camera by a neighbor on Shotwell is causing renewed outrage about the lawlessness on the street, and the lack of policing in general.

As KRON4 reports, via the witness who made the video, the assault occurred allegedly after two suspected sex workers were looking into the windows of a woman's car while she was inside it. The victim apparently got out of her car to confront the women.

"Then they got into a verbal conflict and when the woman got out of the car, the women beat her up," the witness tells KRON4.

The woman called 911 and police soon arrested a suspect a few blocks away, who was identified as a 24-year-old woman from Fairfield. She was booked on a charge of aggravated assault.

District 9 supervisor candidate Trevor Chandler has used the video to do some campaigning about law and order, saying on X, "Shotwell neighbors have raised the alarm for years about increasing violence from sex trafficking on their street but have regularly been ignored... I’m incredibly disturbed at the lack of seriousness from City Hall on this."

Chandler adds, speaking to KRON4, that the SFPD should be deterring the sex trade entirely by arresting and citing pimps and johns.

"First is we actually have true penalties for the johns and the pimps. Because we are so understaffed in our police department we don’t have the coverage to fully staff our human trafficking and sex trafficking divisions," Chandler says. "That’s what fully staffing our police departments will get us." He also tells KTVU that he supports installing license-plate readers in the neighborhood as a further deterrent.

The neighbor who shot the video, who wanted to remain anonymous, told KTVU, "What we’ve heard is, we don’t have enough [police] staffing, it’s not a priority. My feeling is at least manage it, and move it to a non-residential neighborhood."

London Breed's office issued a vague statement to KTVU after the assault, saying that with regard to deterrents and policing, "all options are on the table, including the strategic placement of public safety cameras, street and other physical environment changes, and of course, increased enforcement as well."

Sex work in the neighborhood has been going on for decades, as many long-time residents attest. But another neighbor raising alarms after this attack, Ayman Farahat, says that this instance of violence is not isolated.

"This is not an issue about sex workers, this is an issue about safety," Farahat tells KTVU. "What happened is not an accident. Right before that, there was like one person who was attacked two days ago. There was another person who was attacked. This just happened to be the one that was on tape."

Previously: Capp Street Barriers to Be Made Permanent, Because Apparently They’re Working to Deter Street-Level Sex Trade

Undercover SFPD officers have recently been posing as sex workers and they say they've busted 30 "johns" in a pointless exercise on Capp Street, in an ongoing effort to crack down on solicitation on that Mission District alley.

One sex worker already told a local TV station what would likely happen if SF police continued cracking down on the sex trade on Capp Street, which dates back decades: The sex workers will just shift over to another nearby street.

But crack down they shall, and now we get an update from the SFPD about how many "johns" they've busted in recent months using decoy, undercover officers dressed as sex workers.

"Since operations began, officers have cited or arrested over 30 suspects for soliciting prostitution, issued nearly 150 traffic citations, and provided multiple resources for sex workers," the department writes in a release. "The community should expect to see operations like these for the foreseeable future."

The busted johns have just received tickets for soliciting prostitution, and in some cases they've also gotten citations for failure to stop at a stop sign or cruising with their headlights off, the police say.

This deterrence and enforcement operation has been aimed solely at the men arriving to pay for sex, and not the sex workers themselves. Understanding that "sex workers are often the victims of human trafficking," the SFPD says, "The sex workers encountered by SFPD during these operations were not cited for sex-related offenses but instead were provided resources that will help them transition out of the sex work industry."

Rumblings about Capp Street and an apparent uptick in soliciting there began in early February, with the city announcing that a four-block stretch of the street would be partially barricaded to discourage the slow-moving traffic of johns arriving to cruise the street.

The police now tell us that their crackdown on Capp dates back to last fall, and it's not clear how many nights undercover officers spent on the street posing as prostitutes.

A KTVU report from two weeks revealed the sting operation, so it's clear the department wants the message out now that dudes seeking sex workers shouldn't be coming to Capp Street anymore.

But as with most crackdowns like this, police are likely to lose interest in this project soon, and it will be back to business as usual — and/or the popular strip for plying sex work will just move over to Shotwell two blocks away, or somewhere else.

What seems clear is that word of mouth has let it be known for at least 30 years — if not longer — that Capp Street is where you go for a certain echelon of sex workers. As the Chronicle's Kevin Fagan reported last month, many of these women are addicted to drugs, and the going rate for their services has remained fairly low, compared to other sex-work venues.

As one woman named Nyomie told Fagan, "Putting up barriers might slow it up for a moment — and might actually be good for us, because it will slow down the customers when they drive up. But they’ll never stop the trade here. It’s always been here, and it always will be."

Previously: Capp Street Gets Bigger New Concrete Barricades, Firefighters Union Sounds Off Angrily On Twitter

Image: @SFFFLocal798 via Twitter

As the sex worker controversy roils Capp Street, the district’s supervisor Hillary Ronen has unveiled legislation hoping to legalize sex work, though it really just asks the state legislature to do it.

This past weekend was the first weekend of barricades on Capp Street, which hoped to clamp down on johns soliciting sex workers from their nonstop parade of conspicuously slow-moving cars. By most accounts, this has not worked. Mission Local spoke to a Capp Street resident who said “drivers pushed them aside, or in some cases, completely drove over them.”

When the issue made news in a KGO report about Capp Street residents’ complaints of an uptick in sex work on the street, the district’s supervisor Hillary Ronen told the station she might introduce legislation to legalize sex work to avoid messes like what we see on Capp Street. And on Tuesday night, Ronen took a step toward making good on that promise.

“There has been a prostitution track on Capp Street in the Mission, for decades if not a century,” Ronen said at Tuesday night’s board of supervisors meeting.  “Over the past few months, the situation has gotten out of control. All along Capp Street, from 17tth to 24th [Streets], dozens of women stand out in the cold in the middle of the street soliciting johns from sundown to sunrise. This is on a narrow, fully residential street where kids and parents are trying to get a good night’s sleep.”

“Music booms all night long, there is bumper-to-bumper traffic and much worse, neighbors witness pimps beating sex workers, and there are sometimes gunshots,” she said. “The situation has become extremely unsafe.”

Ronen’s legislation does not create a “red-light district,” as some previous local reporting has indicated. In fact, it’s just a resolution asking the state to step in and do legalization for us. According to a statement from Ronen’s office, the resolution says “Todav I am introducing a resolution asking our State Delegation to introduce a bill to legalize sex work.”

And she’s seeing red over those reports of a so-called red-light district. “I have never suggested setting up a ‘red-light district’ in San Francisco. Though you have probably seen dozens of articles suggesting that we’re considering that,” Ronen said Tuesday night

“Sex work happens in San Francisco, and everywhere in the world, in every city in the world,” Ronen added. “It is time to recognize this, and move towards decriminalization, and ultimately legalization and regulation of sex work."

Here in the U.S., Nevada and Rhode Island have decriminalized sex work. According to Ronen, “Legalization helps combat trafficking, improves working conditions for sex workers, reduces violence against sex workers, and makes it easier to stop underage and unhealthy practices in this line of work.”

“This is a long-term strategy, this is not going to happen tomorrow,” she admitted. “I’m under no illusion this will happen overnight, I’ve been heartened that the state has decriminalized several sex worker practices over the last decade.”

Ronen also acknowledged, “It will take years to set up a regulatory scheme to do it the right way.” That’s not debatable. What may be debatable is that even if sex work is legalized or decriminalized, whether that would even drive the phenomenon off Capp Street.

Related: Capp Street Will Be Barricaded Off Over Concerns There’s Too Many Sex Workers Strolling [SFist]

Screenshot: SFGovTV

The Erotic Service Provider Legal, Educational, and Research Project filed a federal lawsuit back in 2015, challenging a 145-year-old California law that makes sex work illegal. On Thursday, attorney Louis Serkin, representing the group, spoke before a panel of three judges at the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, as CBS 5 reports, asking them to strike it down after a federal judge in Oakland dismissed the suit last year.

Laying out the plaintiffs' argument, Serkin said, "I believe people in this country have the right to act this way and to make a living this way." According to The Independent, they say that the law "unfairly deprives consenting adults of the right to private activity, criminalises the discussion of such activity, and unconstitutionally places prohibitions on individuals’ right to freely associate." Essentially, they're saying that by criminalizing how sex workers make money, the state is denying them their constitutional rights, and that it should be up to a person to decide how they want to work.

Judge Carlos Bea, one of the sitting judges on the panel, wondered, "Why should it be illegal to sell something that it’s legal to give away?"

Sharon O'Grady, Deputy California Attorney General, is tasked with defending the law, and presented the argument that it exists as a measure of safety, as she said that it "[deters] violence against women, sex trafficking, drug use and transmission of sexual diseases," writes NBC Bay Area. She also addressed their concerns about how the law may infringe on their liberty, saying that, "The state is not telling anyone who they can sleep with," but in the interest of reducing the aforementioned dangers, banning sex work is "an easy place to draw the line."

But some experts disagree. LAMBDA Legal's HIV Project Director, Scott Schoettes, said, "Criminalizing sex work does not reduce the transmission of HIV or other sexually transmitted infections: in fact, just the opposite is true." He explains further in a post on the LAMBDA Legal blog:

The evidence is clear that laws making it illegal for consenting adults to engage in private sexual activity in exchange for money hurt public health because they lead to fear of law enforcement and criminal prosecution, deter use of condoms—they are often used as evidence of intent to commit this crime—and create hurdles to health care for sex workers and their clients. The lower court ruling was ill-informed and misguided, and the Ninth Circuit should direct the lower court to reinstate the case and to consider the effects of these laws on public health.

The discourse around sex work has obviously changed since the law was created, and despite being amended multiple times since then, people still feel that it's out of date. Regarding O'Grady's point, it's worth noting that because sex work is criminalized, "transgender people, people of color, LGBTQ young people, gay men, and women who sell sex (as opposed to the men who buy it from them)" are often disproportionately targeted by law enforcement officials, according to an ACLU of Southern California report on sex work. Punishing sex workers instead of those who perpetuate and feed the dangerous system (be it through purchasing, i.e., johns or managing, i.e., "pimps") feels backwards.

The judges' decision should be forthcoming, but perhaps not until the new year.

Previously: Sex Workers Bring Petition To Governor Brown To Decriminalize Prostitution

California's Red Light Abatement Law, a classic early 1900s vice law, has been used as recently as 2015 to shut down illegal gambling dens, but it's been a long time since the City of San Francisco has filed a civil suit under violation of that law to shutter a place of alleged prostitution. Yet tactics old and new are needed to put a halt to one pernicious alleged brothel, according to the office of City Attorney Dennis Herrera.

According to the complaint filed by Herrera's office, Queen's Health Center at 325 Kearny Street "is a massage parlor brothel operated by the defendants under the guise of a legitimate massage establishment." There, since April 2010 and despite numerous health code violations, the defendants have regularly solicited prostitution online and in advertisements from backpage.com to SF Weekly, Herrera contends. Numerous undercover officers have interviewed clients who claimed they sought sex at the establishment and some officers further claim that they were solicited for sex themselves, according to the complaint.

“Massage parlors operating as fronts for prostitution are a blight on our neighborhoods and put women and the community at risk,” Herrera said according to a press release. “Queen's Health Center is one of the worst offenders. Over the years, city agencies have found multiple violations, issued fines and even suspended its business permit. But the business owner, Jie Qin Zhou, has repeatedly come up with new ways to hide and flout the law. No more. "

According to the Examiner's coverage, from 2008 to 2013 the Department of Public Health revoked 73 permits against similar operations — massage parlors operating as brothels — but 45 of them reopened. So to target the alleged repeat offender, Herrera's suit takes aim at both the business owner, Jie Qin Zhou, and the Kearny Street building’s owner, Frank B. Iavarone.

This tactic, according to City Attorney Herrera, "puts property owners on notice that they have a responsibility to ensure their commercial tenants are not exploiting women.... I want to be clear: This lawsuit takes on the business owner and the property owner—the people who profit off the exploitation of women.

Herrera's motion calls for a civil injunction: The business would have to vacate the space for a year, sell its fixtures and movable property at an auction and give the money to the city to fund enforcement, and levy penalties against the property owner and the business owner. Those would be up to $25,000 for allowing prostitution to occur on the premises, at least $200 for each day in violation of the Planning Code, and finally, $2,500 for each unlawful business act.

That's a lot more than the $320 a San Francisco police officer was quoted for "group sex" with masseuses when he entered the premises undercover. According to the complaint, investigators found masseuses wearing lingerie at Queen's on several occasions, found more lingerie and sex paraphernalia on site, and even discovered one masseuse naked in a massage room with her client. Yelp reviews allude variously to the legal and allegedly illegal activities at Queen's Health Center, with one Yelper in 2012 claiming that a "code word" was "boom boom."

“Women who work in massage parlors must be protected against coercion and exploitation,” San Francisco Director of Health Barbara Garcia said according to the release regarding the City Attorney's motion for a civil injunction. “I'm proud of our health inspectors and their dedication to protect these workers, in partnership with law enforcement.”

Related: East Bay Man Arrested On Suspicion Of Sex Trafficking After Luring Women To Fake Fitness/Modeling Agency

Erotic Service Providers Union delivers petition to gov with 24K signatures in support of decriminalizing prostitution. #prostitutenation pic.twitter.com/5xr1HFWzX6

— Jazmine Ulloa (@jazmineulloa) November 15, 2016

Citing the fact that Governor Jerry Brown has more than a half dozen bills in this last legislative session both to combat human trafficking and decriminalize sex work among minors, several members of the Erotic Service Providers Union of California have a petition they want to deliver in person calling for the decriminalization of sex work altogether in the state. Adult sex workers, they argue, also face dangers in being labeled criminals, and they want to be treated (as adult film performers are) as legitimate workers in the state.

Longtime San Francisco activist, union founder, and sex work advocate Maxine Doogan tells the LA Times, "Our population live in California, and we deserve to be represented, and we want our voices heard. We know that there are lots of pieces of legislation that are proposed and passed on our behalf every year calling us victims or criminals, and in fact, we are legitimate workers."

The Erotic Service Providers Legal, Education and Research Project (ESPLERP) writes on the petition, "Sex workers report that they face more threats from law enforcement than from clients. Police often threaten sex workers or even rape them in exchange for not sending them to jail." And this claim is well supported by the recent scandal in the East Bay involving Richmond- and Oakland-based sex worker Jasmine Abuslin, a.k.a. Celeste Guap. That case has led to criminal charges being brought against five former Oakland officers, with more to come.

Doogan and three of her fellow union members gathered on the steps of the Capitol Tuesday, as shown above. They also have a court case, ESPLERP v Gascon, that argues that California's ban on prostitution is unconstitutional, and that is being appealed to the Ninth Circuit.

Doogan previously helped sponsor a local ballot measure in San Francisco to decriminalize sex work, Prop K, which was defeated in 2008 by a margin of 57.6% to 42.4%.

Related: Three More Officers Formally Charged In Oakland Scandal, Including One Who Tipped Off Sex Worker To Sting

One glance at the website for Mad Girls Fitness, still online at the time of this publication, and you might be able to tell that something is wrong. Amidst general nonsense and images of women, the most cogent description of the supposed business is this: "Mad Girls is primarily a professional modeling, advertising and artistic ad photography company. We also offer professional private training services such as private modeling, private dance, private massage and private pole dance and private pole fitness training and job placement.”

Mad Girls Fitness had no business license to speak of, however, and the East Bay Times writes that suspicious neighbors contacted the authorities. The "upscale private club" described on the site for clients just turned out to be a basement in an upscale neighborhood in Pleasant Hill.

"Once they got inside, it was exactly what we suspected, a house of prostitution," Pleasant Hill police Lt. Scott Vermillion told that publication. "They made a deal of sex services for money, and when the money was given, we called it and that's when the arrest was made."

Pleasant Hill’s Community Violence Solutions program advocates are providing support to the survivors.

54-year-old Dominic Salazar was arrested by undercover detectives and has been charged with pimping and false imprisonment, the Chronicle reports. As Vermillion put it, "We're still in the infancy of this investigation."

It doesn't sound like there was any artistic photography happening, or even pole dance training for that matter.

Related: Man Convicted Of Pimping Young Girls On Capp, Polk Streets

A fascinating map of Chinatown from 1885, commissioned by the S.F. Board of Supervisors amidst a flurry of moral concern over opium, gambling, and sex slavery, has just resurfaced via New Republic. It provides a building-by-building survey, with color codes for brothels (both White and Chinese), gambling houses, opium dens, and "Chinese joss houses" (pagan houses of worship).

San Francisco's Chinatown is almost as old as the city itself, with Chinese immigrants first arriving during the Gold Rush, and many more deciding to settle in the city after being recruited to work on the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, which was completed in 1869. The rapid growth of Chinatown in the ensuing years led to California passing a law in 1870 against the import of Chinese, Japanese, and "Mongolian" women for the purposes of prostitution, and it led to a certain amount of squalor in the segment of time as density outpaced any sort of regulation, law enforcement, or quality control in construction.

There was such an influx of immigration from China in the 1870s that Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which prohibited Chinese people from becoming naturalized citizens. The law made San Francisco's Chinatown, which was the largest in the nation, even more attractive to immigrants as one of the country's only safe havens.

But in 1885, amidst growing panic about the "Chinese race" and the part of the city they occupied, the Board of Supervisors commissioned a report that concluded that Chinese immigrants were "the rankest outgrowth of human degradation that can be found upon this continent." With the report came this map documenting the uses in each property.

As you can see on the whole map, Grant Street used to be called Dupont Street, but most of the other street names remain the same.

And while there was plenty of Chinese prostitution in the heart of Chinatown, you can see the overlap with the Barbary Coast of North Beach with a whole hub of white prostitution around Sacramento Street between Grant and Stockton. If you live over there, you now have some new factoids to throw around at your next dinner party.

See map details below. (Click to enlarge.) Update: A commenter alerts us to the fact that a copy of this map, or perhaps one of the remaining originals, is hanging at Big Four.

[New Republic]

Supervisor Katy Tang, who succeeded Carmen Chu to head up District 4 in February by mayoral appointment, proposed some tougher legislation today to crack down on brothels/handjob parlors fronting as massage parlors in the Sunset District. Tang says that legislation she helped craft four years ago as a legislative aide hasn't gone far enough to curb prostitution in the district.

SFGate points to one recent case in which the Health Department walked in on a masseuse at one of these businesses in flagrante delicto having sex with a customer. She was not cited for prostitution, and therefore got off with just a fine for "inappropriate attire."

The new legislation would go after business owners, requiring them to pay fines and notifying them of all violations, and banning all alcohol or non-prescription drug use in these businesses. Also, it will require masseuses to wear photo ID badges while working, and will require that massage permits be denied to anyone convicted of sexual or human trafficking crimes.

At issue, in particular, may be two businesses, which were called out by a constituent when Tang was first appointed to replace outgoing Supervisor Carmen Chu, Joyous Massage (20th and Irving) and Long Rainbow (23rd and Irving), which s/he calls "Asian brothels fronting as massage parlors." We of course can not confirm the validity of that claim.

[CBS]
[SFGate]

An "increasing number" of Berkeley students are earning thousands of dollars a month through the website SeekingArrangement.com, which is a "dating" site for sugar daddies and their "sugar babies" seeking "mutually beneficial relationships." Modern times, kids.

UC Berkeley and UC Davis were ranked among the "Fastest Growing Sugar Baby Schools of 2012," (though not in the top 20) with Berkeley seeing a 67% increase in whores, and Davis seeing a whopping 220% increase. And while we can't confirm how many actual students this represents, it's an amusing statistic given all the drama around tuition increases at the UCs in recent years. A gal/guy's gotta do what a gal/guy's gotta do to get that diploma!

Also, Millennials are total libertines, and this should not come as a shock.

According to the site, which has a vested interest in making these arrangements sound better than they are, "the average college Sugar Baby receives approximately $3000 per month to cover the cost of tuition, books and living expenses." No word on what the average expectation is from the sugar daddies, but we can promise you it will probably haunt their dreams for decades to come.

[CBS]
[HuffPo]