Mayor Denis Coderre announced Monday that he will be taking aim at massage parlours, a business that has done the city a great service by taking prostitution off of street corners.
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Police report that now only about three percent of all of Montreal's prostitution is of the shady and dangerous streetwalking variety and part of the credit for this improvement must go to massage parlours.
Not long ago, many streets frequently had prostitutes patrolling at a high frequency, nowadays street prostitution is scattered and only has significant concentrations along St. Catherine between Prefontaine and Pie IX.
Street prostitution is something that residents are united against, as the practice casts a dark shadow of drugs and sex onto an area. (An upcoming Supreme Court decision might open the floodgates to street prostitution, so that too could be a problem).
Prostitution has largely found a more appropriate home indoors, as women put their services now onto the internet and welcome their customers into private premises.
Often those premises are apartments, which is something that can irritate neighbours, as nobody likes frequent comings-and-goings around the clock.
But massage parlours take that issue out of apartment buildings and inside commercial buildings that are further away from homes, so it's the perfect place for sexual services to take place.
The number of massage parlours has rapidly increased in Montreal but there have been no corresponding rise in murders, or attacks, or Molotov cocktails tossed into such places, so it's hard to sustain an argument against these discreet places being a nuisance to a community.
The city administration says it will refuse business licenses to those applying to open massage parlours, but this obstruction of legitimate commerce will leave storefronts empty and commercial landlords without an income to pay their taxes.
Also, the women who work in such establishments are often people who are shunned in the hiring process. You don't see Hydro Quebec banging on their doors to offer them receptionist jobs, so forcing them out of their rug-n-tug handiwork is also an economic attack on vulnerable people.
View Larger Map Selling sexual services is not a crime. There are no victims involved in someone getting a massage that may or may not include some degree of sexual stimulation.
Coderre's puritanical initiative suggests that he doesn't necessarily understand the way Montreal works and reeks of early-era MCM's misguided attempt to ban strip club signs from downtown, one which floundered and cost them a lot of wasted time and effort.
Not long ago, many streets frequently had prostitutes patrolling at a high frequency, nowadays street prostitution is scattered and only has significant concentrations along St. Catherine between Prefontaine and Pie IX.
Street prostitution is something that residents are united against, as the practice casts a dark shadow of drugs and sex onto an area. (An upcoming Supreme Court decision might open the floodgates to street prostitution, so that too could be a problem).
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| Massage parlour opens on the Main |
Often those premises are apartments, which is something that can irritate neighbours, as nobody likes frequent comings-and-goings around the clock.
But massage parlours take that issue out of apartment buildings and inside commercial buildings that are further away from homes, so it's the perfect place for sexual services to take place.
The number of massage parlours has rapidly increased in Montreal but there have been no corresponding rise in murders, or attacks, or Molotov cocktails tossed into such places, so it's hard to sustain an argument against these discreet places being a nuisance to a community.
The city administration says it will refuse business licenses to those applying to open massage parlours, but this obstruction of legitimate commerce will leave storefronts empty and commercial landlords without an income to pay their taxes.
Also, the women who work in such establishments are often people who are shunned in the hiring process. You don't see Hydro Quebec banging on their doors to offer them receptionist jobs, so forcing them out of their rug-n-tug handiwork is also an economic attack on vulnerable people.
View Larger Map Selling sexual services is not a crime. There are no victims involved in someone getting a massage that may or may not include some degree of sexual stimulation.
Coderre's puritanical initiative suggests that he doesn't necessarily understand the way Montreal works and reeks of early-era MCM's misguided attempt to ban strip club signs from downtown, one which floundered and cost them a lot of wasted time and effort.