California City to Vote
on Decriminalizing Prostitution

SAN FRANCISCO, June 24 (Reuters) - Voters in the liberal bastion of Berkeley, California, will vote in November on whether to allow prostitutes to go about their business with little fear of arrest.

A measure has qualified for the city's November ballot that would make enforcing prostitution laws as low a priority for police as arresting marijuana smokers, the measure's organizers said on Thursday.

If voters approve the measure, the Berkeley City Council also would be required to lobby for a statewide repeal of prostitution laws.

Robyn Few, a former prostitute and founder of the Sex Workers Outreach Project, said that enforcing the current law wastes tax dollars. "The money can be better spent in helping women than in entrapping people," Few said.

Additionally, women should be able to hold jobs as prostitutes, said Few, who was arrested in 2002 in a federal bust of a multi-state prostitution ring.

"I believe we have the right to choose what we do in work and to have occupational rights," said Few, who served a six-month house arrest sentence and is starting three years of probation.

Measure organizers gathered almost 3,200 signatures to qualify their proposal for the ballot, well above the 2,077 the city requires.

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates said he opposes the measure because of criminal activity that would appear in the wake of open prostitution.

"In practical terms, it's a really bad idea," Bates said. "It would mean that it would be in anyone's neighborhood with law enforcement not having the adequate tools to respond."

"I don't favor decriminalization. I favor legalization," Bates said. "It would mean certain people would be licensed and regulated and we would know they would meet health standards and it would cut out the people making money off prostitutes."

Berkeley, east of San Francisco, is home to the University of California, Berkeley, and has had a reputation as a counter-culture haven since the student protests of the early 1960s.