An Im modest Proposal? Prostitution is a vice like any other, really. A vice in fact often associated historically with that other scourge of men and their families, gambling. Gambling and prostitution have gone hand in hand for centuries. And while Nevada was once the only state in America to allow legalized gambling, it remains the only one to allow legalized prostitution.
Over the past year or so, Niagara Falls Community Development Director Seth Piccirillo has advocated that the city pay recent college graduates thousands of dollars to move to the city, and Mayor Paul Dyster has been an enthusiastic advocate of importing dangerous sex offenders and other violent felons into the city both to bolster sagging population numbers and enjoy the financial windfall provided by the state Division of Parole for taking in the risky undesirables.
A more modest proposal, and one that would result in a better class of people here, would be to lobby the state to legalize prostitution in a small section of Niagara Falls, preferably near the Seneca Niagara Casino, and allow for the establishment and regulation of brothels and tax the proceeds. The revenue thus generated would not be inconsiderable.
When Vince Anello was mayor, he and Sheriff Tom Beilein strongly backed the opening of an Asian massage parlor on Third Street that was quickly shut down by the feds as a center of both prostitution and human trafficking, so the idea is not completely without precedent here. The Dutch government legalized prostitution in , and the Red Light District in Amsterdam, though only a little more than one acre in size, is famous the world over.
It is so tiny, and so famous, that Amsterdam city officials say there is no longer room for all the prostitutes who want to work there and all the customers who flock to visit them. The prostitution concession in Niagara Falls will likely be handed over to some Native American group and then, a decade from now, when prostitution is legalized state wide, our city will be excluded from consideration because of the exclusive deal made by Albany with the Pottawattamies or the Chickasaws or whomever.
