Prostitutes Just Don't Want To Leave Tijuana Streets Authorities Say

[matcom]

<snip>

TIJUANA — Outside the El Burro Bar, Monica and Juana saw the seedy landscape of this border city's red-light district gradually take on a new look with swaying palm trees, pastel-painted hotels and fancy lampposts.

Then city inspectors ordered Monica and Juana and all the other prostitutes off the streets and inside the smoky bars and hotels. The new sidewalks, the inspectors said, were for tourists, not the dozens of hookers who crowd the doorways and sidewalks of Callejon Coahuila.

The women — called las paraditas, or "the little ones who stand" — rebelled, triggering a classic only-in-Tijuana civic battle that pitted community leaders against the city's storied and stubborn tradition of vice.

In September, their faces covered with blue handkerchiefs, about 200 prostitutes gathered in La Coahuila, as the red-light district is known, and twice marched across the city in a show of civil disobedience that culminated with a threat to strip on the steps of City Hall. City officials backed down and offered a compromise.

It was a fittingly raucous standoff for a city trying to impose order in the area that helped give birth to its unruly reputation. Try as it might, Tijuana's efforts to create a new image reflecting its transformation into a thriving arts center and Mexico's land of opportunity inevitably collide with its colorful, often seedy past.

http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-me-hookers4jan04.story

[DS1]

1. If the hookers won't come to matcom, matcom will come to the hookers

6 DAYS!!!!!

:7

[matcom]

3. YYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

:bounce:

[jellybelly]

2. as long as they aren't grabbing tourists

I don't see the problem...some prostitutes like to follow men around, even if his wife and child are with him...

[IronLionZion]

4. they're welcome to come over here

:evilgrin:

[KurtNYC]

5. This was their 'threat' ?!

a show of civil disobedience that culminated with a threat to strip on the steps of City Hall

Are they ugly or something?

[jellybelly]

6. aren't all prostitutes ugly?

If they were beautiful they would be dating old, rich men...

[amazona]

7. said to say i agree with you

My observation also.