`Brothels in the sky'
One highrise has 5 prostitution dens
Problem city-wide, politicians divided
Nov. 11, 2006. 01:00 AM
ROBERT CRIBB AND DALE BRAZAO
STAFF REPORTERS
The scent of cheap cologne and hairspray trails the 40-something man as he paces anxiously inside the front entrance of a Scarborough highrise apartment building.
Alternating between buzzing and phoning, his persistence is rewarded a few minutes later with a welcoming voice on the intercom. "Hi. It's apartment 1410," an Asian woman says.
The front door unlocks and the man, dressed in grey pants and a black leather jacket, hurries to join a group of children in an elevator at 3275 Sheppard Ave. E., near Warden Ave.
Like a steady parade of other male visitors to the building every day, this man is on his way upstairs to purchase sex at one of Toronto's growing number of highrise brothels.
This building is a symbol of the migration of prostitutes from public space to private — a city-wide movement that has tenants complaining and officials struggling for answers.
Police, politicians, landlords and prostitutes all say hundreds of brothels are finding homes in Toronto apartment buildings like 3275 Sheppard Ave. E., where the Toronto Star discovered five separate brothels operating out of units located next to families and seniors. At least some of the brothel migration into private apartment buildings appears to be the result of the city's efforts last year to stamp out prostitution in licensed — but bogus — "holistic" centres. Today, there are 620 fewer women holding city licences to work as "holistic practitioners" — a 34 per cent drop from a year ago.
The move followed a Star investigation showing the city had inadvertently licensed more than 300 brothels and was spending more than $2.5 million a year to inspect and charge the operations.
The crackdown may have solved one problem for the city. But questions about Toronto's sex trade are mounting.
Many of the women selling sex in Toronto may be victims of human trafficking, police officials say.
Acting Staff Insp. Mike Hamel of Toronto Police's sex crimes unit says many of the estimated 2,000 people trafficked into Canada each year end up working in the sex trade in Canada's largest cities, including Toronto.
"There's more of a problem than just prostitution here. The issue is, where are these people coming from, who brings them in and what's the background?" says Hamel, whose department recently established a special victims unit to offer assistance to sex trade workers and to prosecute those who exploit them, including human traffickers.
"It's an area that's really hard to get to because it's well organized."
Another senior police officer, who did not wish to be identified, said governments are turning a blind eye to the human costs of prostitution.
"Everybody's passing the buck on this issue, from the feds right down to the municipalities," he said. "If it were Canadian women being held against their will to do this kind of work, we'd be kicking down the door."
Politicians in Toronto are far from united on how to tackle the prostitution issue. At least a couple of city councillors say it's time to think about the legalization of prostitution.
"Pushing the problem deeper underground was not the city's intent or desire," says Peter Milczyn (Ward 5, Etobicoke-Lakeshore), who has battled illicit holistic centres in his ward. "In terms of both providing protection to the women who are in this business, and protection to the public in terms of health and appropriate locations, it has to be a regime of legalization and regulation. As it is, I see things getting worse, not better."
Councillor Norm Kelly (Ward 40, Scarborough-Agincourt), whose ward includes the Sheppard Ave. E. corridor where private sex dens are proliferating, says he favours a get-tough approach with landlords who knowingly allow brothels to operate in their buildings.
"Landlords often close their eyes," he says. "I think you need to exert pressure on them."
Inside 3275 Sheppard Ave. E., tenants say they're tired of sharing elevators and hallways with the building's provocatively dressed prostitutes and their clients, who come and go all night.
"We know it's going on," says Davyd Lipkin, the building's property manager. "But it's very difficult to evict people. You have to prove it. And when they're gone, new ones come."
Three weeks ago, the city's municipal standards division advised Lipkin it had received complaints about tenants "operating a massage parlour/illegal bawdy house."
Lipkin says he's done everything in his power to weed out brothels in the 17-storey building only to see them multiply "like cockroaches."
Customers are lured to the brothels in the building by explicit ads in newspapers featuring photos of predominantly young, scantily clad, Asian women.
A year ago, adult classified sections were filled with ads for "holistic" massage parlours. Today, the word "holistic" can hardly be found, replaced with far more explicit ads for brothels in apartment complexes.
Star reporters who called, at random, numbers in 10 such ads in local newspapers were directed to apartment buildings in every case — from Jarvis St. downtown to Sandhurst Circle in north Scarborough to Keele St. in west Toronto. Some brothels offer several locations to prospective clients. Many openly advertise "full service," the trade's code word for sex, for as little as $60, a fraction of what escorts normally charge.
"You can come to 3275 Sheppard or our other location at 2323 Eglinton Ave. Same girls," says an Asian woman responding to a caller at the Scarborough building.
"I am the CEO of sex," said a man who answered the phone a block away, at 25 Bay Mills Blvd. "I have Chinese girls, Japanese and Korean. Your pick."
While prostitutes who worked in holistic centres attempted to hide their services behind the pretense of a massage, women working in many of Toronto's brothels-in-the-sky come at their customers with a no-holds-barred, in-your-face sexual menu in newspaper ads, websites and on the phone.
"How are you, sweetie?" a sultry voice asks a reporter who phoned a brothel advertising "Six Sexy Students", located in unit 1810 at 3275 Sheppard Ave. E. "I do everything for you. Make you very happy. Sex, no condom. You come now, sweetie?"
The young woman then directs the potential customer to the building with instructions to call again from the lobby for the apartment number.
During a one-hour period one recent afternoon, the Star witnessed half a dozen customers buzzing the apartments where sex was for sale. The five brothels in the building had distinct similarities, including white plastic doorbells at each entrance.
In each case, a bedsheet or tablecloth was strung just inside the front door to hide the main living area where as many as five young Asian women congregated, dressed in sexy lingerie or skimpy clothing.
While the women who answered phone calls from prospective clients communicated in English, they claimed not to speak or understand English when Star reporters visited the units to ask questions.
One woman, who had directed a Star reporter to the apartment saying "you can get anything you want for $100," lost command of the English language when the reporter knocked on the door a few minutes later and identified himself.
At least five Asian women were inside the spartan apartment during a recent visit. All were dressed in revealing clothing. One invited reporters into nearby bedrooms that featured stained mattresses draped with leopard-print comforters, bare walls and little furniture.
Inside unit 1410, a 30-something woman in a red sundress directed a Star reporter into a bedroom. When handed a business card, she would only say, "I will tell boss to call you. You go now." No call came.
At unit 508, two Asian women in nightgowns welcomed visitors. Spread throughout the apartment were a box with dozens of unused condoms, lubricants and rolls of toilet paper. Drying on the balcony were a bra, panties and camisoles.
A mother of three daughters who lives in the building got a rude awakening when a man came to her door late at night a few months ago after spotting their white doorbell.
"He asked if this was the massage parlour," says the tenant, who asked that her name not be published for fear of retribution. "Just because I have a doorbell doesn't mean I'm running a brothel. It's degrading."
"When (the prostitutes and clients are) in the elevator with us I want to take my kids upstairs and bathe them in Lysol."
While the migration of sex dens into apartment buildings has largely removed them from public sight, it has also pushed them further away from the eyes of inspectors, police and health officials.
"In apartment buildings, the rights of access are significantly more restricted than a business," says Frank Weinstock of the city's municipal licensing and standards department. "Without permission from tenants, you can't go in."
