Getting caught buying sex in Oakland could now mean thousands of dollars in new fines

OAKLAND — City Hall here is taking a tougher stand against pimps and johns across the city, which has become known for hosting the largest open-air sex trafficking market in the Bay Area.

The City Council granted final approval Tuesday to an ordinance that significantly ups the fines and consequences for anyone caught buying sex in the city, while also targeting the people trafficking women and the property owners allowing the industry to flourish in their buildings.

City leaders say they want to refocus law enforcement’s efforts away from punishing the young women and girls being exploited along “The Blade” — that stretch along International Boulevard made infamous for the numerous killings, robberies and drug deals accompanying the region’s sex trade — and toward the people who have profited the most from that prostitution.

At the same time, the law aims to funnel more money toward the women seeking an escape from the streets.

Councilmember Charlene Wang, who proposed the ordinance, stressed that the new fines “add another form of accountability that is faster and more certain than just relying on the criminal justice system alone.”

At an early February meeting, Wang decried the city’s sex trade as exploiting “some of our young people who have suffered some of the most horrific abuses.” She said “families are fed up with this problem” in East Oakland, particularly given how pimps have been seen trying to recruit children going to school near “The Blade,” while convenience stores in the area now sell lingerie in a nod to the local sex trade.

Just last month, gunmen ambushed two brothers operating a late-night lingerie store hawking see-through lingerie, fishnet clothing and high-heeled faux leather boots, killing one of the men and wounding the other. No motive has been revealed for the killing at the store, which had previously been derided on Yelp as a “pro human trafficking business” and a store with “no shame.”

It marked merely the latest instance of gunfire along that stretch of International Boulevard, where teenagers and prostitutes routinely lure men into vehicles or motel rooms before their traffickers rob them at gunpoint of their cash and car keys.

“One part of this is targeting demand,” Wang said. “There are challenges with targeting the pimps, and ultimately we will be here every single year discussing how do we provide services to victims if we don’t ultimately address the source.”

The ordinance specifically amps up fines for “sex purchasers, sex traffickers and properties used for prostitution,” according to a staff memo prepared ahead of Tuesday’s vote.

For people caught loitering to buy sex, those fines could reach up to $4,000 for a first offense and $8,000 for every subsequent conviction. People found trafficking others could be fined up to $10,000 the first time they’re caught, and up to $20,000 for each time after that. All fines would be tripled if police find that minors were involved.

Property owners allowing “lewdness or prostitution” at their site could face up to $2,500 in public nuisance fines.

Any money collected from the new law would go to a newly created Human Trafficking Survivor Support Fund, which would dole out money to local nonprofits and other entities directly helping people who have been trafficked for sex. That fund would likely be overseen — and the funds from it dispersed — by the city’s Department of Violence Prevention, Wang said at a Feb. 3 council meeting. But that system had yet to be finalized when the ordinance was initially passed that day.

City officials expect the new ordinance to bring in anywhere between $250,000 and $450,000 a year from citations written by police officers, the staff memo said. The Dream Youth Clinic, S.H.A.D.E. and Love Never Fails were specifically named in that memo as the types of organizations that might financially benefit from the new fund.

The ordinance comes amid a growing focus at the state level to root out sex trafficking across California by going after people overseeing the sex trade or patronizing it. Often, those efforts have focused on the issue of loitering for the purposes of prostitution.

In 2022, state lawmakers decriminalized loitering with the intent to commit prostitution in California. The bill, proposed by San Francisco-based state Sen. Scott Weiner, aimed to address concerns by the American Civil Liberties Union that the old law was too subjective, leaving women of color open to discrimination and unfair police stops.

In June, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation that made it a misdemeanor to loiter with the intent to purchase commercial sex. The law also imposed a $1,000 fine for doing so, and established a state fund to collect money from those fines for organizations helping sex trafficking victims.

Oakland city leaders framed their new ordinance as going further than the recently passed state law, while ensuring that more money made its way to local nonprofits helping East Bay trafficking victims.

While proclaiming his “full support” for the measure, Councilman Noel Gallo voiced concern at the council’s Feb. 3 meeting that law enforcement needed to do more to enforce the laws surrounding human trafficking in the city, “otherwise we’re doing more policy, more talking, more feeling sorry and making excuses for it.”

He explicitly called out police and other law enforcement agencies for not doing more, saying “enforcement needs to increase, and pushback on the street needs to happen.”

“We all see it — you see it, I see it, everyone here sees it,” said Gallo, of the city’s open-air sex market. “But we have to enforce the laws.”

Dr. Aisha Mays, founder and CEO of Dream Youth Clinic, praised the ordinance as “really promising” for her clients, nearly half of whom report being sexually trafficked in the Oakland area. In particular, the money raised “can be so impactful for addressing social scarcity that already made young people really vulnerable” to sex trafficking.

“We have to address demand,” Mays added. The new law, she said, sends a message to johns that “if they come to Oakland to try to buy young people for sex, they are going to be penalized, and that Oakland takes it very seriously.”

Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter. Call, text or send him an encrypted message via Signal at 510-390-2351, or email him at jrodgers@bayareanewsgroup.com.