Street watch chases off Rosettenville hookers

Published Mar 23, 2001

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By Shaun Smillie

Every night the Roseview Street Watch gathers in Mabel Street, Rosettenville, just before they head out to patrol their suburb.

They are from different backgrounds and races - but what they all have in common is that they are fed up with the crime that is eating away the integrity of their neighbourhood.

"Our property values are falling. The banks now consider Rosettenville a 'red area', they don't give out bonds," says one member. Like most of the street watch group, he wants to remain anonymous, because members say they have had death threats from pimps and drug dealers.

One of the major problems are the prostitutes who openly walk the streets, sometimes right outside their houses. And those who operate in the area are becoming more brazen.

"I know someone who drove his wife to the post office and, while she was inside, a prostitute came up to him and said she could give him a quickie before his wife returned," according to one watch member. Other members say they have been hijacked in the streets they live in and now patrol.

It was Nick Coetzee who decided that something had to be done after his 12-year-old daughter asked him what a woman was doing outside their house. "This woman was flashing her private parts at passing cars. I realised we needed to do something," he recalls.

To head out and patrol with the street watch is to see the underbelly of a suburb that, over the past couple of years, has slid into a quagmire of crime and sleaze.

Crack cocaine is the new currency. "A stolen cellphone will get you five cocaine rocks," says a former Rosettenville crack addict who is a part of the street watch. A rock is worth R50. Many of the prostitutes, he says, work from one hit of crack to the next. Boyfriends pimp their girlfriends.

The centre of the Rosettenville sex trade, residents say, is what some refer to as the "Mecca of Evil", the Rosettenville Hotel and with it the Eager Beaver Gentleman's Club.

The owner of the hotel, Andrew Ellinas, says his establishment isn't a brothel and that he can't control what tenants do in their rooms. "I wasn't aware of what was happening in the hotel."

He also says the police's claim that they have arrested 20 child prostitutes in raids on the hotel is incorrect, because reports confused his hotel with the Europa Hotel in Hillbrow, which was raided simultaneously and where child prostitutes were found. However, Captain Mike Mokhonoana, of Booysens police station, says underage prostitutes have been arrested at the hotel.

When the Saturday Star visited the area, a child prostitute, perhaps younger than 15, could be seen standing on the pavement in Main Street. At the sight of the street watch members, most prostitutes run.

Ironically, many of the street watch members believe that legalisation would sort out their suburb's prostitution problem. There is even talk of the need to establish a formal red-light district in the area, but away from where the hookers currently ply their trade.

Nomantu Nkomo, a member of the Gauteng legislature, who is on the provincial housing committee, also suggests that a red-light district is the way to go.

A ray of hope for residents is that Rhema Church is considering buying the Rosettenville Hotel and turning it into a drug rehabilitation halfway house. Ellinas has said he is keen to sell the hotel.

But even with the establishment of a formal red-light district and the closure of the hotel, residents question if the prostitutes would move.

Says one member of the watch: "There are lots of other brothels in the area. We get fancy cars cruising down our street from the Free State. We believe that most of the clientele come from the northern suburbs."

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