New 'loitering' penalties targeting Seattle drug and prostitution zones approved by City Council

After weeks of debate and controversy, the Seattle City Council voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to pass new criminal penalties intended to disrupt drug and prostitution-related crimes in city hotspots.

Council members said ongoing criminal activity in those zones compelled them to take action. Critics accused them of embracing an approach, unsupported by data, that could enable profiling and racial disparities in enforcement.

The Council voted 8-1 to create new gross misdemeanor penalties for loitering in specified drug or prostitution-related zones. If people are arrested for crimes like assault or theft “in which the court finds a nexus between the offense and illegal drug activity,” municipal court judges could issue orders banning them from six different “Stay Out of Drug Area” (SODA) zones in places like the Chinatown International District, the downtown core, and other areas with “high levels of significant drug activity,” according to the legislation.

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Councilmember Bob Kettle sponsored the SODA legislation in partnership with City Attorney Ann Davison. Kettle called it an attempt to look at the “whole community” affected by open-air drug markets.

"Neighbors have been assaulted, placed under constant threat and unable to have community,” he said.

Councilmember Cathy Moore sponsored the second bill, which creates a “Stay Out of Area of Prostitution” zone on Aurora Avenue above North 85th Street. Moore said her bill is meant to crack down on pimps and buyers of commercial sex, “where women and other individuals are being trafficked and prostituted for the very, very profitable gain of pimps and the sole personal gratification of buyers.”

According to the Seattle City Attorney’s office, the city has seen just a handful of cases each year in which pimps were prosecuted for the existing felony of “promotion of prostitution,” which requires victims to cooperate with an investigation.

Moore said her solution is to create a new gross misdemeanor that doesn’t pose the same risks to the victims of trafficking because it’s based on the “observable behavior of the exploiters — of them monitoring, surveilling, shouting at, directing, transporting individuals to the Aurora corridor.”

RELATED: Seattle City Council considers 'prostitution loitering' law amid intense debate

Sellers or survivors of commercial sexual exploitation cannot be banned or targeted by the SOAP orders, but they could be arrested for loitering under the new law. Moore promised more help in the upcoming budget to fund an emergency receiving center where survivors of commercial sexual exploitation on Aurora could be diverted upon arrest.

“We will move money around in our budget to make that happen, and for me this is the beginning of the work, it is not the end of the work,” Moore said.

Councilmember Tammy Morales voted to repeal Seattle’s previous loitering laws four years ago, and she was the lone “no” vote on the current bills.

“While these bills may scratch an itch to feel like Council is doing something to address public safety, to claim that these laws will address any of these problems is dangerous and it is the epitome of performative,” she said.

Morales said the city should instead prioritize offering services and housing to people in the affected zones.

“There’s substantial evidence that disrupting drug markets actually increases violence and increases overdose deaths,” she said.

SODA orders and other forms of “banishment” have also been criticized for preventing recipients from accessing social services and other legitimate destinations like work or family. The new measure requires judges to take those needs into consideration when issuing the orders, but defendants must provide evidence to support those decisions.

Mayor Bruce Harrell has indicated that he will sign the two bills into law, and they would take effect 30 days later.

“The mayor is supportive of additional tools to help keep neighborhoods safe, and believes, if applied appropriately, these tools can complement efforts to reduce street disorder, identify breakdowns in the health system, and help those in need access services and treatment to get well,” a spokesperson for Harrell said in a statement.

The Seattle Police Department also voiced support for the new loitering bills, saying in a statement provided to KUOW that the laws provide “greater opportunity to interrupt cycles of significant public disorder and, especially in the case of SOAP, the violence associated with the human trafficking that drives prostitution on Aurora and further victimizes already vulnerable persons and communities.”

The department added, “While staffing and resource shortages continue to strain the department, SPD appreciates any tools, whether legislative or technological, that enable the department to deploy with greater efficiency and effectiveness.”