OAN’s Elizabeth Volberding
3:15 PM – Wednesday, October 18, 2023
A rise of sex workers wearing only “G-strings” in front of traffic has become a progressively frequent on the streets of National City, California, leaving the city’s mayor frustrated over a new state law that has prompted prostitution to intensify.
National City’s mayor, Ron Morrison, says that the area has been increasingly chaotic due to prostitutes who have been assembling around San Diego.
Morrison explained that National City consists of a “diverse working class city of roughly 60,000 residents just outside San Diego on the bay.” He also said that what he has seen on his streets is “very much beyond brazen.”
“They’re waving to people on the freeway or, just to be honest with you, they are bending over for the freeway. I don’t know how else to put it; they’re showing their wares,” the National City mayor said to reporters in an interview this month.
In July 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) signed Senate Bill 357, which revoked a prior law that eliminated loitering with the intent to engage in prostitution. In January 2023, the law took effect.
Morrison believed that when Newsom signed the bill, men in California knew they had the potential to grow their prostitution ventures with barely any consequences from law enforcement.
“The moment it was signed by the governor, boom, everyone knew the rules were out the window,” Morrison said. “Those that are out there on the street, most of them are wearing less than what you would consider a scanty negligee. It is just flaunting in everybody’s face. And so a lot of people are screaming, ‘Hey, you know, can’t you get them on indecent exposure?’ And the problem is the way our laws are read in this state. The definition of indecent exposure is as long … as the genitals are covered. Anything else is fair game out in public.”
Prostitutes have been spotted near the downtown area that faces a freeway in National City. They are usually seen early in the morning or around 3 p.m.
Morrison believes that another reason the prostitution issues have accelerated is due to a new California law that made jaywalking legal, which may cause women to stand in the middle of traffic to attract men.
“I was driving on one of the streets the other day, and there’s this young lady standing there in the middle of the street wearing basically a G-string, and that was it, and a couple pasties. But she’s right in front of my car, I couldn’t move. So, I did ask her very politely, ‘Would you please move out of the street?’ And she looked at me and said, ‘If you don’t want to talk to me, you can go around,'” Morrison said.
Several businesses around the area, including local mom-and-pop shops and national hotel chains, have notified the mayor that their businesses have been failing due to the prostitutes.
Many hotels said that they were forced to refund families who were unhappy with their visit as they saw multiple naked women during their stay.
As a result, Morrison blamed the increasing prostitution issues on Senate Bill 357, which he called an “idiotic law” that he believes should be known as the “Safe Streets for Pimps Initiative.”
“This one has just opened the doors to prostitution, sex trafficking, child sex trading, I mean, you name it. This has obviously done that. And I don’t think anyone that is not just purely politically motivated could disagree with that,” Morrison stated.
Senate Bill 357 was written by Senate Scott Wiener (D-Calif.), who noted the bill as one that would assist to protect transgender women from being targeted by law enforcement.
“[The previous law] allowed police officers to arrest a person, not based on what they did but based solely on how a person looks,” Wiener told local media earlier this year. “So, an officer could arrest someone because they were wearing tight clothing, high heels and extra lipstick.”
Prostitution remains illegal in California, however, Morrison claimed that the new law has adequately legalized the criminality as police have withdrawn from interacting with the women on the streets.
“Senate Bill 357, which for all intents and purposes made prostitution legal because what it said is that officers can no longer contact people based on the idea of loitering for the purpose of prostitution. So, it basically tells the police your hands are off,” Morrison said.
The National City mayor announced that he is in the process of working with the local district attorney and the local police department to create ways to navigate California’s laws while clearing out the streets.
“People here are not happy about this in the least. And the problem is they expect us locally to do something about it. And we’re sitting here with our hands behind our back with handcuffs that Sacramento was placed on us,” Morrison concluded.
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