UPDATE -- THE FOLLOW-UP REPORT: NO REPEAT OFFENDERS AFTER VEHICLE SEIZURES,
COPS SAY

Then: After weeks of discussion and a two-hour meeting with heated public
discussion, the Sacramento City Council a year ago passed an ordinance that
allows police to permanently seize the cars of people suspected of cruising
for prostitutes or drugs.

Modeled after an Oakland ordinance, the Sacramento measure deems the cars a
nuisance in the neighborhoods where they prowl and makes it possible for
the city to take and sell them.

Now: Since the ordinance went into effect, Sacramento police have arrested
50 men and seven women in related sting operations, and the cars of 39 men
and one woman were confiscated. However, most of the cars eventually were
returned to the owners after they paid costs, said police Capt. Theodore J.
Mandalla.

Councilwoman Lauren Hammond, who authored the ordinance, said it has proved
effective even if it brought her a flood of letters and e-mails -- mostly
negative and mostly from men -- at the time it was passed.

"You never know when a sting's going on, because our police are very, very
good at that, but the results are telling. We're moving the prostitution
right out of town," Hammond said.

In the ordinance's most notable case, Folsom's then-mayor Reggie Drew lost
his pickup truck when he was arrested Jan. 27. He subsequently pleaded
guilty to charges of drug possession and soliciting for prostitution in a
sting operation in a North Sacramento stroll area.

From the police perspective, the ordinance is used at least once a month
when the department mounts a sting operation, Mandalla said.

Crime remains a problem, with 463 suspects arrested on charges of
soliciting or loitering for prostitution last year, he said, but none of
the suspects arrested in the confiscation stings has been a repeat offender.