We wear our dungarees / Above our nelly knees!

February 2, 2009 4:01 AM

Robert Pinter, a 52-year-old gay man who was arrested for prostitution at the Blue Door in the East Village on Oct. 10, spoke at the town hall meeting. He said a young man ... cruised him in the store. He was "charming and persistent, and we agreed to go home for consensual sex, but as we were leaving he said, 'I want to pay you $50 [to have sex].' I didn't respond, but I thought it was strange," Pinter recounted. As the men left the store, Pinter said, a group of men who did not show police identification pushed him against the wall. "I thought I'd been set up by a gang," he said. "I asked them why they were doing this to me. I was totally clueless. They handcuffed me and said, 'Why the f--- do you think we're arresting you — loitering for the purpose of prostitution.'"

Reminiscent of the criminalizing of consensual gay sex in the Stonewall era, New York City cops are using questionable tactics to target, entrap, and falsely arrest gay men.
posted by orthogonality (63 comments total)

Seems like entrapment, pretty open & shut, or worse. False charges on bogus entrapment really, as these guys have consented to no crime. Do we really have nothing better to do with our time?
posted by Devils Rancher at 4:07 AM on February 2, 2009

This is entrapment, no?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:08 AM on February 2, 2009 [2 favorites]

In an extraordinarily cynical play by Mayor Bloomberg, these men are being targeted, entrapped, and left with a criminal recod, not because of anything they've done, but because the City of New York wants to shut down the gay bookstores and video stores where the arrests are taking place.

If enough arrests occur at a business, the City can shut the business down. The ruined lives of the innocent patrons are apparently unimportant collateral damage to the business interests profiting from "cleaning up the neighborhood".

What's all the more disgusting is that we allow this to happen now, nearly forty years after Stonewall. It shows that for unions, the poor, blacks, or women, or gays, civil rights aren't a victory that happened in the past, but an ongoing struggle.
posted by orthogonality at 4:10 AM on February 2, 2009 [15 favorites]

No, it's not entrapment.

Entrapment would be if these guys agreed to pay for prostitution, if they were tempted into doing something illegal. That's not what's happening. They're being arrested after someone offers to pay them, whether or not they explicitly accept the offer.

And let's face it, a 40-something guy, hearing an offer from a hot young twink to pay him, is going to dismiss that as a joke. I'm not gay, but if a hot girl half my age offered to pay me to get my rocks off, I'd smile at her flattering witticism too, not think she meant that or that I was agreeing to anything illegal.
posted by orthogonality at 4:15 AM on February 2, 2009 [3 favorites]

It's disconcerting that this is happening, but it's also worrying that (if this really is par for the course) that the people arrested tend to get the advice to plead guilty to disorderly conduct, rather than stand against what seems to be a pretty blatant misconduct by the police (although going to court on a prostitution charge is understandably unappealing).
posted by bjrn at 4:45 AM on February 2, 2009 [3 favorites]

Can you be a prostitute without solicitation?
posted by fullerine at 4:45 AM on February 2, 2009

Shame on NYCPD.
posted by Meatbomb at 4:50 AM on February 2, 2009

Did our esteemed council Speaker really say she was "going to get to the bottom" of this?
posted by Captaintripps at 5:03 AM on February 2, 2009 [4 favorites]

And let's face it, a 40-something guy, hearing an offer from a hot young twink to pay him, is going to dismiss that as a joke.

Yeah, exactly. This doesn't even come close to passing the smell test. Ugh.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 5:08 AM on February 2, 2009

Dear Police,

Don't you have something better to do? If you don't, we can find something for you to do.

Thanks.
posted by adipocere at 5:10 AM on February 2, 2009 [10 favorites]

If true, this is deeply despicable, and the department should be shamed publicly for its actions here.
posted by mrstrotsky at 5:25 AM on February 2, 2009

I'm glad the officers of the NYPD are fighting the right fight, and don't have any need to patrol the docks for illicit material arriving in the States, or dismantling violent drug gangs, or investigating Wall Street crimes, or infiltrating terrorist cells, or cleaning up old cold cases, or wasting their time on other, obviously less important matters.
posted by billysumday at 5:34 AM on February 2, 2009 [20 favorites]

I would have liked this story better if Robert Pinter had told the cop he only took Amex, and if he could just <>reveals top of ass crack<> swipe his card they had a deal.

Mind you, they'd probably have arrested him for indecent display of hairy man buttocks in a public place. Or credit card fraud. Or failing to correctly display all applicable retail taxes before the customer made the purchase.
posted by MuffinMan at 5:37 AM on February 2, 2009 [4 favorites]

Well 40% of you guys still thinks that consenting same sex-sex should be illegal so...

Gallup source
posted by mnsc at 5:46 AM on February 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

Bloomberg makes my skin crawl. For some reason, I thought he was gay.

You can bet that at the base of all of this are three phone calls--a call from a real estate developer to a City Council Member,a call from the City Council member to the Mayor, and a call from the Mayor to the Police Comissioner.
posted by Ironmouth at 5:51 AM on February 2, 2009 [13 favorites]

Act Up, Queer Nation, and yes, every individual gay person -- and every person who claims to give a damn about civil right, I'm looking at you, black leaders and church leaders -- needs to be down at City Hall telling Bloomberg "for shame".

And I'd be very interested in knowing what (politically connected?) developer is taking over the space vacated by the shuttered Video, Video, Video store.
posted by orthogonality at 5:52 AM on February 2, 2009

(See, even Ironmouth and I are in close agreement here, even though Ironmouth scurrilously called Robert Heinlein a "quasi Fascist".)
posted by orthogonality at 5:54 AM on February 2, 2009

MNSC - so the 60% of 'us people' who don't think it should be criminal to have sex with a same sex partner should just shut up and look the other way?
posted by sandraregina at 5:55 AM on February 2, 2009

...these men are being targeted, entrapped, and left with a criminal recod, not because of anything they've done, but because the City of New York wants to shut down the gay bookstores and video stores where the arrests are taking place.

Exactly. It won't matter one bit if these arrests are immediately thrown-out by a judge or not. All the city wants is the record of multiple police actions occurring on the premises in question. Whether or not those actions actually result in a conviction are irrelevant to what the end-game actually is...removal of the shops as public nuisances (and sale of the properties to Bloomberg-friendly developers, of course.)
posted by Thorzdad at 6:04 AM on February 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

Well, the idea that a only a select group of people who engage in military service should get citizenship is a long, long way from "we believe these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." I read Starship Troopers probably 4 times as a kid.

Derail aside, the developer isn't really interested in the shop per se, but what he or she believes is lowering property values in the neighborhood--the porn store. Its really a long-term attack on the First Amendment rights of the porn store owners with the gay men being pawns.
posted by Ironmouth at 6:05 AM on February 2, 2009 [2 favorites]

Bloomberg has been so deep in the developer's pockets he's coughing up lint. This is both disgusting and par the course. Blarg.
posted by The Whelk at 6:46 AM on February 2, 2009

Act Up, Queer Nation, ... needs to be down at City Hall telling Bloomberg "for shame".

It would be more productive for Act Up, Queer Nation, etc, to:

*Help the video stores install cameras with sound to help catch cops out when they lie about solicitation.

*Spread the word of this crap, and remind gay men that the instant someone mentions pay they should immediately and loudly state "WHAT? That's disgusting. I would NEVER accept pay for sex, and I do not consent to have sex with you. Good day, sir."
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:48 AM on February 2, 2009 [2 favorites]

What the police are doing here, is it a crime?

'Cause it should be.
posted by Sys Rq at 6:50 AM on February 2, 2009

"a select group of people who engage in military service"

Actually, that was "a self-selected group of people who volunteered for and didn't drop out of public service, a fraction of whom ended up in the military". Perhaps a fifth, more careful reading is in order? And this time, bear in mind the difference between "prescriptive" and "descriptive". Heinlein's other proposals for the franchise included "only for those who can solve quadratic equations" and "only for women for the next century and a half", and he certainly sounded more serious in his non-fiction about the latter two suggestions than in the fiction that bothered you so much.

But now I'm just making the derail worse? The only relevance Heinlein has here is that he might have part of the 2% of the US population who really thinks the government should butt out of issues like whether or not people can sell sex. Unfortunately, 49% of the population seems to think selling is evil, and the other 49% seems to think sex is.
posted by roystgnr at 6:52 AM on February 2, 2009 [2 favorites]

...if a hot girl half my age offered to pay me to get my rocks off, I'd smile at her flattering witticism too, not think she meant that or that I was agreeing to anything illegal.
Hmmm, I'm sensing a reciprocal "enforcement" opportunity.
posted by Floydd at 6:52 AM on February 2, 2009

so the 60% of 'us people' who don't think it should be criminal to have sex with a same sex partner should just shut up and look the other way?

That would be a double fail, so please don't. I searched around for figures on how many of you (Americans, I'm Swedish) considered homosexuality to be "wrong" and was surprised when I found that 40% thought that it should be outright illegal. "So..." with that piece of info this tweaking of the law by the nypd made more sense since some of that 40% probably are cops and above.

And I tried to find numbers on how many of "us" Swedes agree with that extreme view but that seem to be a non-question here. note: I'm not saying that we are gay neutral over here we're just way ahead.
posted by mnsc at 7:14 AM on February 2, 2009

And let's face it, a 40-something guy, hearing an offer from a hot young twink to pay him, is going to dismiss that as a joke.

Speaking as a 40-something gay guy, I'd be turned off if someone offered me money for sex: "Ewww. You think I'm a prostitute?" Not that anyone ever has quite done that, but I remember an explicit "I-bought-you-dinner-you're-supposed-to-have-sex-with-me" statement from a date that left me running the opposite direction.
posted by Robert Angelo at 7:26 AM on February 2, 2009

mnsc, it's a teeny tiny bit ridiculous to take a poll covering the entire US and try to apply it to (of all places) New York City.

I'm not saying some NYC cops aren't homophobes (some are). But statistics averaged across the whole country are often really misleading. The average temperature in the US might be 60 degrees, but I still have to chisel ice dams off my roof today.
posted by ook at 7:39 AM on February 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

So, do the folks raped by cops get charged with solicitation since the officers are on the clock when they do it?
posted by stet at 7:48 AM on February 2, 2009

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
posted by paperpete at 7:53 AM on February 2, 2009

It won't matter one bit if these arrests are immediately thrown-out by a judge or not. All the city wants is the record of multiple police actions occurring on the premises in question. Whether or not those actions actually result in a conviction are irrelevant to what the end-game actually is...removal of the shops as public nuisances (and sale of the properties to Bloomberg-friendly developers, of course.)

That was my first thought as well. If true then it is pretty damn cold to knowingly make criminals of innocent men just to get material for shutting down a sex related business, one that otherwise is legal.
posted by caddis at 7:58 AM on February 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

"Speaking as a 40-something gay guy, I'd be turned off if someone offered me money for sex: 'Ewww. You think I'm a prostitute?'"

One time, this very very drunk girl mistook me for a male stripper. I was wary but flattered.
posted by orthogonality at 8:00 AM on February 2, 2009

I've seen situations where stores like these do create a public nuisance for the neighborhood in which they operate. That, however, is no justification for this nonsense by law enforcement.

It does seem an awful lot like entrapment because the office is the one explicitly soliciting the illegal activity (at least, according to the description in the article).
posted by DWRoelands at 8:05 AM on February 2, 2009

That survey cited by mnsc is a little weird. 89% of the participants feel that gays should have equal job rights while 40% think that consensual gay sex should be illegal. I guess its OK to be gay as long as you remain celibate. Nice.
posted by caddis at 8:08 AM on February 2, 2009

Well 40% of you guys still thinks that consenting same sex-sex should be illegal so...

Yeah, well, 50% of "you guys" are furniture salesmen, 30% are black metal musicians, and 20% are members of Gert Jonnys.

See, I can form ignorant, flippant opinions about an entire country based entirely on cursory research too.
posted by DecemberBoy at 8:31 AM on February 2, 2009 [2 favorites]

30% are black metal musicians

Fortunately we are in the process of passing a law making it illegal to not be a black metal musician so that number should shape up real soon.
posted by mnsc at 8:41 AM on February 2, 2009 [2 favorites]

I thought only Republicans cruised public restrooms anymore.
posted by WolfDaddy at 8:42 AM on February 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

That's just shameful. Whoever ordered this, and whoever participated in it, should be fired and charged with whatever they can be charged with. If they'd spend less time hassling the gays and the pot smokers, they'd have more resources to, like, catch murderers and child abusers. Some people, you can almost picture them looking at a murderer getting convicted and saying, "Well, at least he's not gay."
posted by jamstigator at 8:47 AM on February 2, 2009

I feel like I'm from another planet by saying this, but: Can somebody explain to me why there is a drive to shut down gay book/video stores? In New York? I could understand here in Houston, I guess. Maybe I'm just missing the forest for the trees here?
posted by Avenger at 8:48 AM on February 2, 2009

"89% of the participants feel that gays should have equal job rights while 40% think that consensual gay sex should be illegal. I guess its OK to be gay as long as you remain celibate."

Based on a careful reading of the Ender series and a little math, that would imply that 49% of people are not Orson Scott Card. We should be aiming for something a little higher, America. Like 100%.
posted by adipocere at 8:50 AM on February 2, 2009

Gentrification. Porn shops have this image of driving down property values.
posted by sandraregina at 8:50 AM on February 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

Presumably because the gentry have sticks up their asses.
posted by Caduceus at 8:57 AM on February 2, 2009

I searched around for figures on how many of you (Americans, I'm Swedish) considered homosexuality to be "wrong" and was surprised when I found that 40% thought that it should be outright illegal. "So..." with that piece of info this tweaking of the law by the nypd made more sense since some of that 40% probably are cops and above.

Gee, some painstaking research on your part there. Regardless of what “figures” you’ve read, I’m leery about any study that claims to account for the total American attitudes towards gays when no mention is given regarding the cultural terrain for the average citizen living in NYC and to the average resident living in say, Oklahoma. Given its sheer size, varying cultural and religious influences, etc., you're going to find a greater deal of cultural and ethical disparities between what Americans believe/think/agree upon in varying places than you are in Sweden, and for this reason alone it should be pretty motherfucking apparent that these “figures” say absolutely NOTHING about the general attitudes of New York natives towards homosexuality (let alone give an accurate portrayal of all Americans), so please don’t be so quick to pat yourself on the back, pal.

This NYC resident feels the cops in this story are a minority and do not even come close to representing the attitudes of New Yorkers, or developers in the W. Village for that matter (taking a guess here). This story is despicable and something should be done to stop these illegal practices immediately.
posted by tiger yang at 9:10 AM on February 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

Presumably because the gentry have sticks up their asses.

Maybe the actual trouble is the lack of sticks up asses, despite popular perception.
posted by sandraregina at 9:27 AM on February 2, 2009 [2 favorites]

Like others here I suspect it's a real estate conspiracy to shut the stores down, get the property cheap because it will then have court issues, rebuild on the property.

I read a 1940 Vassar University sociology thesis on "An American family". At one point the author wrote that the Fifth Avenue Merchants Association was formed "to keep Jewish businessmen south of 30th Street".

The real estate/building biz in NYC is packed with various types of corruption, from not telling people the subway tunnels are lined with asbestos so every passing train fills the air with asbestos particles to Robert Moses' style entire neighborhood destruction.

The real estate scam side and perhaps also the pressure on policemen to fill a quota of arrests per day. I heard it was 35 tickets or arrests per day, to generate revenue for the city.
posted by nickyskye at 9:29 AM on February 2, 2009

The reason isn't wholly gentrification. It's convenience. And in that respect, Stonewall has changed very little.
posted by WolfDaddy at 9:39 AM on February 2, 2009

Floydd : Hmmm, I'm sensing a reciprocal "enforcement" opportunity.

Oh hell yeah. Can you imagine how quickly these laws would be re-evaluated if a woman could offer to have sex with a man, and then at the last second add to it an indication that she would like to pay for it, and then bust the man for being a prostitute when he didn't turn her down?

Any police-woman working vice could complete her quota in an hour or two.
posted by quin at 9:53 AM on February 2, 2009

Oh.
Crap.

I have spent too much time teasing prior SO's (of both genders) in the past about things like leaving $20 on the nightstand in the past. I will just thank the deity of your choice I live in the Midwest. where there can be a difference, occasionally, between reality and the lack thereof.
posted by Samizdata at 9:54 AM on February 2, 2009

tiger yang: I wasn't misreading the poll, I'm aware that any attitude surveys claiming to paint a picture of a whole country paints with broad strokes. And in this case it most definitely would be interesting seeing that 40% broken up since your coast cities are always held as more liberal in general. I posted that gallup link only because it chocked me and was somewhat recent. But now, reading other comments, I'm starting to buy into that real estate conspiracy. How's that unregulated market economy working out for you guys?

ignore this troll
posted by mnsc at 9:58 AM on February 2, 2009

I blame Dan Savage. This poor schmuck probably thought he was just being GGG by going along with this ridiculous young man who has a thing for daddies that he pays. More shame, people! We need more shame!

Oh wait...
posted by greekphilosophy at 10:00 AM on February 2, 2009

Well, now that the NYC economy has crashed, maybe Manhattan will be safe for smutty businesses again.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:52 AM on February 2, 2009

If true then it is pretty damn cold to knowingly make criminals of innocent men just to get material for shutting down a sex related business, one that otherwise is legal.

Exactly.

This is a severe abuse of power that should disturb anybody. Gay rights are barely even a central issue here. If the police can do this to someone who's gay, they can do this to someone who's straight, they can do this to you just because they've decided they don't like you.... or, as it sure looks like here, because it'll make someone well-connected a bit more money.

And any officer involved should be thoroughly ashamed, because by the time you're part of an organization that operates that way, you're not part of a legitimate police force anymore, you're part of organized crime, you've become what you set out to fight.

I'm thinking about this, I'm thinking about poor Oscar Grant, I'm thinking about the Prince George County SWAT screwup where they shot the mayor's dogs and the hundreds of like stories that happen here in this country every day. And I'm asking the question: how do we really get genuine police accountability in this country? Because it's pretty damn obvious we don't have it now.

I'm starting to think it's gonna need to be as serious as having prompt no-confidence votes available in cities and counties, a democratic provision to immediately disemploy anyone involved in the chain of command of a local police force. Mayor, DA, city council, police chief, maybe even the immediate layer of administration below.

I hope there are lots of people in New York and in the Bay Area who in two years remember this issue and are willing to vote for candidates on it alone, because it's that important.
posted by namespan at 11:05 AM on February 2, 2009 [6 favorites]

Troll? Get a fucking clue. My comment was that your “poll” discussing aggregate American attitudes regarding homosexuality is a bad indicator for defining NYC attitudes regarding homosexuality, and as such, isn’t germane to this conversation. And (on preview) I wasn't the first person here to bring up this fallacy, so for the sake of the post, calm down and stop trolling yourself.

The corrupt NYC real estate "conspiracy" is one that certainly has credence, and given the players in the game, I'm not doubting it. The article suggests the police deputy commissioner cited the initial “crack down” may have begun after a series of complaints made to the department (by area residents? By area community / business associations? Who knows). It’s a wild guess, but this could be the collusive work of community groups / business associations whose complaints have sparked some extremely corrupt and morally disgusting tactics by the area police. To anyone unfamiliar with the West Village, the idea of gentrification in this neighborhood in 2009 is sort of a joke (development’s been there / done that years ago). If the area housing authorities have anything to do with this: the National Association of Realtors, as well as every city and federal housing authority, have extremely strict laws regarding discrimination of residents based on sex, race, etc. (though God knows they’ve been broken before). If the real estate giants are in any way involved in this I hope they’re caught and held accountable for it.
posted by tiger yang at 11:15 AM on February 2, 2009

It must really suck to have to do this. I mean, you must really be a bigot to have any motivation to solicit gay men for sex (given you’re not gay...or hell, worse if you are). You’d probably do it really poorly otherwise. At least I would.
“Hi...want to have sex for money? No? Ok. Whatever.”
- all the other stuff aside of course (including the real estate conspiracy, which is speculation, but probably accurate, and yeah, organize crime). That’s obvious.
But it looks like it sucks all the way ‘round (obviously not as bad, but it’s part of the absurdity). It’s as absurd (again, albiet not as egregious) to be going about your business being stalked by cops trying to entice you as it is to be on the stalking side.
I mean, ok, you’re tasked with sending a guy out to do this - what, you have to find someone good looking?
“Davis!”
“Yes Sergeant?”
“You’ve got a fabulous ass, right?”
“Uh....”
“We want you to go and cruise gay hangouts, solicit people for sex, then bust ‘em!”
“Well, I was working on this stolen shipment of assault rifles by a white supremacist group that...”
“Never mind that now. This is important.”
Lieutenant: “Sergent, have you found a man with a gorgeous ass to go out and solicit homosexuals?”
Sgt: “Yes sir, but apparently Officer Davis is scared.”
Davis: “Uh, I’m just saying we had a shootout with these guys and some of our men were killed, but we captured a few of them and they said they’re going to kill all kinds of...”
Lt: “Oh, a shootout with armed felons stealing guns, eh? Investigating criminal conspiracies to kill minorities, eh? And that’s something police officers with fabulous buttocks and pouty lips should be doing with their time?”
Davis: “Well I took three hits to the vest with....sir?”
Sgt: “We have homosexuals Davis! Walking around the neighborhood. Shopping. They’re near children. And puppies. You don’t hate children and puppies do you?”
Davis: “Uh...”
Sgt: “Good, get on out there. Take off that cockamamie pistol. Ok. Now get out there and take down some bad guys. Hold up. Here’s your lip gloss.”

I think a corollary to the “fantics can’t spot irony” is that the more absurd it looks, the more sinister it probably is.
Examples abound - MIBs obviously, but the Nazis were pretty clownish. Watch the films. At a distance, their actions are silly, their ideas are ridiculous and the methodology (and obviously the extremism) is cartoonish. And yet, earnestly deadly and evil.
Perhaps this is by design. The more arbitrary and absurd the pressure, the less livable the space is.
posted by Smedleyman at 11:44 AM on February 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

Smedleyman- exactly. People here know I'm not exactly pro-law enforcement, since I've run into enough corrupt versions of it, but I've also talked to enough cops who came into it with a view towards civic duty and common good. They didn't become officers in order to boot homeless/weird-looking people from storefronts. In this case it must be frustrating to know you're enforcing the whims of greedy developers rather than enforcing the law. When it comes down to it, I'd feel pretty whorish.
posted by small_ruminant at 11:56 AM on February 2, 2009

Anyone here remembers the heartbreaking opening montage of "Milk"? The black and white footage of police rounding up and arresting harmless people who were minding their own business in gay bars?

Looks so dated, does it?
posted by matteo at 11:58 AM on February 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

The real estate conspiracy makes no sense at all in this economy, though.

Also, I was surprised that 17% of men arrested for prostitution are over 40. Who knew?
posted by Maias at 1:17 PM on February 2, 2009

The real estate conspiracy makes no sense at all in this economy, though.

I thought about that too. Also, while I'd wouldn't venture to say that homophobia doesn't exist in the W. Village (or anywhere) ... it’s still the W. Village fer Christsake's, and I have a hard time believing any business/community group could get away with enacting such a blatantly homophobic campaign without being discovered and subsequently busted out en masse by the media and area residents.

My best guess is that this is the work of a few idiots in the police department who pieced together a horrible protocol to combat what they (perhaps incorrectly) perceived to be an existing problem of rampant prostitution in area bars.
posted by tiger yang at 1:36 PM on February 2, 2009

The real estate conspiracy makes no sense at all in this economy, though.

I thought about that too. Also, while I'd wouldn't venture to say that homophobia doesn't exist in the W. Village (or anywhere) ... it’s still the W. Village fer Christsake's, and I have a hard time believing any business/community group could get away with enacting such a blatantly homophobic campaign without being discovered and subsequently busted out en masse by the media and area residents.

My best guess is that this is the work of a few idiots in the police department who pieced together a horrible protocol to combat what they (perhaps incorrectly) perceived to be an existing problem of rampant prostitution in area bars.

Its not homophobia. It really has little to do with being gay at all--it has to do with the fract that there are porn stores. The developers feel they will lose property values because the porn stores are there.

They aren't going to be getting away with it for much longer. People are waking up to this. And this thread is a part of that.
posted by Ironmouth at 2:11 PM on February 2, 2009

The real estate conspiracy makes no sense at all in this economy, though.

It might make "more" so-called sense in that if real estate values are dropping, then a developer is more desperate, and will resort to even more chicanery to keep the values of his real estate high, or at least prevent it from sinking as fast as the others - including forcing out the porn etc.

But still, this is bat-shit insane and I wonder how rampant this is and who is ordering it.
posted by xetere at 3:20 PM on February 2, 2009

The best time to buy real estate is when the price is low. If you really want to make it, you have to think mid to long term.

And I agree that a good thing to do would be to print giant posters saying something like:

"Caution: Police officers posing as gay men soliciting sex have been seen in this area. sex should be free anyways"
posted by dirty lies at 4:05 PM on February 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

roystgnr: Unfortunately, 49% of the population seems to think selling is evil, and the other 49% seems to think sex is.

I had never quite thought of it in this way before, but it makes perfect sense now.
posted by nightchrome at 5:30 PM on February 2, 2009

Oi. Reminds me of this shit, closer to home, a few years back.
posted by Rykey at 2:15 AM on February 3, 2009