Red Light Neon: A History of Vancouver’s Sex Trade (Subway $22)
Dan Francis, editor of the Encyclopedia of British Columbia and author of the newly released Far West: The Story of British Columbia (Harbour 2006) for young readers, can never be accused of effete scholarship. While researching his biography of Vancouver mayor Louis Taylor, he became intrigued by the relative lack of information about prostitution in Vancouver. With the blessings of publisher and man-about-town George Fetherling, Francis has produced Red Light Neon: A History of Vancouver's Sex Trade (Subway $22), from which the following ten highlights-or low points-were taken. As well, Francis' overview contains three pages about acclaimed poet and ex-prostitute Evelyn Lau and a two-page summary of the censored book The Wendy King Story (1980) about a free-spirited prostitute and a judge referred to as Davey F.
1. Vancouver's first brothel was owned by Birdie Stewart and was located next door to the Methodist minister's house in Gastown near the present site of the Lamplighter Pub.
2. After the city was created, in 1886, city council routinely met its budget shortfall by arresting the prostitutes, fining them $20 apiece, and letting them go. For the women, it was a tax on doing business; for the city it was a windfall.
3. Vancouver's first red light district was located on East Pender St., then known as Dupont St., near the western entrance to Chinatown. As the city expanded in that direction, the women were shunted into Shanghai Alley and then, by 1912, onto Alexander Street near the waterfront.
4. In the interwar years, the "King of the Bawdyhouses"; in the city was Joe Celona, an Italian immigrant whose close connections to the police chief and the mayor created a major scandal. In 1935 Celona was convicted of keeping a brothel in a Hastings Street hotel and sent to jail for a long stretch.
5. Gerry McGeer got himself elected mayor in December 1934 by promising to clamp down on "the pimps and brothel keepers."; A year later he announced a day of prayer in the city "to thank God for the removal of commercialized vice and the return of peace and order.";
6. During the Depression it became illegal for restaurants in Chinatown to hire white waitresses because the authorities claimed the cafes were fronts for prostitution and were corrupting the city's white womanhood. The women marched on city hall to protest the loss of their jobs, but the law held.
7. In January, 1959, in a front-page exclusive, the Vancouver Sun revealed that a team of its reporters, posing as customers, had had no trouble ordering prostitutes from bellhops and cabbies at a variety of local hotels. In Vancouver, apparently, sex was on the room-service menu.
8. Just before Christmas, 1975, police raided the Penthouse Cabaret, a thriving centre of prostitution. In a sensational trial, owner Joe Philliponi, along with two brothers and a couple of employees, was convicted of living off the avails of prostitution, but on appeal the convictions were set aside. Philliponi was later murdered at his home next to the club, which thrives today as a peeler bar.
9. During the 1980s, street prostitutes and residents were at each other's throats in the West End, until in July 1984 Chief Justice Allan McEachern passed an injunction banning street walkers from the neighbourhood. Of course, they just moved somewhere else.
10. In the fall of 1998 police received an anonymous phone tip linking a pig farm in Port Coquitlam to the rash of disappearances of sex trade workers from the Downtown Eastside. The call was investigated, but neither the Vancouver police nor the RCMP were able to justify a search warrant. In February 2002 a joint task force sealed off the property, arrested one of its owners, Robert "Willy"; Pickton. In the interval between these two dates, 30 more women had gone missing. Pickton was charged with the murder of 26 women. 0-9736675-2-4
[BCBW 2007] "History"
1. Vancouver's first brothel was owned by Birdie Stewart and was located next door to the Methodist minister's house in Gastown near the present site of the Lamplighter Pub.
2. After the city was created, in 1886, city council routinely met its budget shortfall by arresting the prostitutes, fining them $20 apiece, and letting them go. For the women, it was a tax on doing business; for the city it was a windfall.
3. Vancouver's first red light district was located on East Pender St., then known as Dupont St., near the western entrance to Chinatown. As the city expanded in that direction, the women were shunted into Shanghai Alley and then, by 1912, onto Alexander Street near the waterfront.
4. In the interwar years, the "King of the Bawdyhouses"; in the city was Joe Celona, an Italian immigrant whose close connections to the police chief and the mayor created a major scandal. In 1935 Celona was convicted of keeping a brothel in a Hastings Street hotel and sent to jail for a long stretch.
5. Gerry McGeer got himself elected mayor in December 1934 by promising to clamp down on "the pimps and brothel keepers."; A year later he announced a day of prayer in the city "to thank God for the removal of commercialized vice and the return of peace and order.";
6. During the Depression it became illegal for restaurants in Chinatown to hire white waitresses because the authorities claimed the cafes were fronts for prostitution and were corrupting the city's white womanhood. The women marched on city hall to protest the loss of their jobs, but the law held.
7. In January, 1959, in a front-page exclusive, the Vancouver Sun revealed that a team of its reporters, posing as customers, had had no trouble ordering prostitutes from bellhops and cabbies at a variety of local hotels. In Vancouver, apparently, sex was on the room-service menu.
8. Just before Christmas, 1975, police raided the Penthouse Cabaret, a thriving centre of prostitution. In a sensational trial, owner Joe Philliponi, along with two brothers and a couple of employees, was convicted of living off the avails of prostitution, but on appeal the convictions were set aside. Philliponi was later murdered at his home next to the club, which thrives today as a peeler bar.
9. During the 1980s, street prostitutes and residents were at each other's throats in the West End, until in July 1984 Chief Justice Allan McEachern passed an injunction banning street walkers from the neighbourhood. Of course, they just moved somewhere else.
10. In the fall of 1998 police received an anonymous phone tip linking a pig farm in Port Coquitlam to the rash of disappearances of sex trade workers from the Downtown Eastside. The call was investigated, but neither the Vancouver police nor the RCMP were able to justify a search warrant. In February 2002 a joint task force sealed off the property, arrested one of its owners, Robert "Willy"; Pickton. In the interval between these two dates, 30 more women had gone missing. Pickton was charged with the murder of 26 women. 0-9736675-2-4
[BCBW 2007] "History"
Submitted on February 14, 2007 in By David.