Alex Henderson

The Culture Wars

Cab Drivers, Hookers and Politicians: Misguided New Law Will Penalize New York City Cabbies For Transporting Prostitutes 



By Alex Henderson
RealmNoir, June 26, 2012

In the United States, repressive anti-sex laws often come from the Republican Party. The American Bible Belt is full of Republican social conservatives who never tire of using porn, gay marriage, sex education or abortion to scare people into voting for them. But fear-mongering around sex can come from Democrats as well, and in heavily Democratic New York City, civil libertarians have been speaking out against a new law that will fine cab drivers $10,000 for knowingly transporting prostitutes to "tricks" or "johns." The law, which was supported by Christine C. Quinn (speaker of the New York City Council) and other Big Apple Democrats (including Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras, who introduced the legislation back in December), is flawed on many levels.

Never mind the fact that prostitution should be legal, regulated and taxed in the United States the way it is legal, regulated and taxed in the Netherlands and many other countries (only in parts of Nevada does the U.S. have legal prostitution). Even if one opposes the legalization of prostitution, the law is problematic. First, it places a huge burden on NYC cab drivers, who will be expected to determine whether or not a potential customer is a prostitute. How do they determine if a female customer might be a prostitute? At the top of the list, supposedly, is the way she is dressed. Problem: the vast majority of women in New York City who wear sexy attire are not prostitutes. The law (which could cost the city $2 million) says that drivers “may not refuse fares solely based on the appearance of an individual,” but let’s be realistic: if a cab driver is fearing the possibility of a brutal $10,000 fine, he/she just might avoid picking up a woman in sexy attire.

Let’s say that a woman in a black leather microminiskirt, knee-high stiletto vixen boots, fishnets and a skimpy halter is trying to hail a cab on Manhattan’s Upper West Side on a Saturday night. She isn’t a prostitute (maybe she works as an advertising executive or a dental hygenist during the week), and she is on her way to a nightclub in the West Village. The cab driver reasons that she probably isn’t a prostitute, but fearing the possibility of losing $10,000, he/she isn’t taking any chances and doesn’t stop for her. Thus, he is turning away business that he needs. And for New York City politicians to harm perfectly legitimate businesses during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s is absolutely unconscionable.

One New York City politician who has enough common sense to oppose the law is Councilman Dan Halloran of Queens. In May, Halloran told the Tribune-owned WPIX-TV: “Here we’re going to spend $2 million dollars and educate cabbies to be social workers and informants for the police department. What are we thinking? How about keeping our after-school programs open? Two million dollars goes a long way to do that. How about not closing the 20 firehouses the mayor is slating to close so the public is safe?”

Halloran, for the record, is a Republican with libertarian leanings (he plans to run for a seat in the House of Representatives and has been endorsed by the Libertarian Party). And given the stranglehold that the Christian Right has on so much of the modern GOP, it’s quite ironic when Democrats are guilty of sexual fear-mongering and a Republican is the one who calls them out on it.

Opponents of the law have included not only Halloran and cab drivers, but also, female bartenders. On June 14, a group of female bartenders protested against the law in front of New York’s City Hall in Lower Manhattan, arguing that if they wear sexy attire on the job, politicians shouldn’t be making it more difficult for them to get a cab home. Between cab drivers and bartenders, at least two elements of New York City’s workforce will be victimized by a horribly misguided law. 

And again, making it more difficult for people to work is the last thing that New York City needs during a brutal economic downturn. But when it comes to economic concerns versus sexual fear-mongering in the United States, sexual fear-mongering often wins out—and as Quinn, Ferreras and others have recently demonstrated, some of the ones doing the fear-mongering can be card-carrying members of the Democratic Party.

  Alex Henderson is a veteran journalist whose work has appeared in The L.A. Weekly, AlterNet, Billboard, Spin, XBIZ, Creem, The Pasadena Weekly, and a long list of other well-known publications. He can be followed on Twitter @alexvhenderson.