DRUG INITIATIVE MAY TARGET PROSTITUTION

In an effort to get tough on crime -- always popular in an election
year -- Orange County will soon consider several new laws targeting
two of the oldest vices in recorded history: prostitution and drinking.

Announced last year as an anti-drug initiative, the proposed laws that
county commissioners will take up next month hardly seem like drug
laws, at least on the surface. Instead, the laws would allow
authorities to impound the cars of customers caught with prostitutes
and make it easier for authorities to arrest those who are caught
drinking in public.

Because the ordinances are still in draft form, County Chairman Mel
Martinez's office would not comment.

If the prostitution ordinance is approved, and law enforcement is able
to demonstrate fair and effective enforcement of it, then drug
language would be added, said Vincent Scarlatos, assistant general
counsel for the county who is helping to draft the proposed laws.

That new language, in shorthand: smoke a joint in your car, lose the
car. It could be added as soon as a year after the prostitution
ordinance is made law, he said.

But already -- even before consideration by commissioners -- critics
have emerged.

"I have concerns about how fairly they can enforce this," said Alan
Lunin, president of the Central Florida district of the American Civil
Liberties Union. "Traditionally, blacks and Hispanics tend to get
stopped more than those who aren't."

There is also the issue of law enforcement impounding someone's
property before a judge has determined guilt, Lunin said. "This gives
us a great deal of concern, because you're being punished before
you've been judged."

Initially, the ordinance called for impounding cars for drug-related
offenses. But because of criticism like that voiced by Lunin the drug
elements were stripped out, Scarlatos said.

"But if the ordinance on prostitution works, it will be more palatable
to the community, and we could then add a drug element to the law,"
Scarlatos said. "But we would have to prove that we could enforce it
fairly and have the support of the public."

As envisioned by county officials, the car impoundment law would force
anyone caught in a car with a prostitute to give up their vehicle to
authorities -- a $500 fee would get the vehicle back. In extenuating
circumstances, such as getting caught with a prostitute in a borrowed
vehicle, the vehicle would not be taken from its owner.

"It's a secondary means of deterrence," Scarlatos said. "We take the
car and hold it from these guys until they pay up. There is no current
state law to impound a vehicle for a misdemeanor crime. This fills a
loophole that state law doesn't currently cover."

Another law county commissioners may consider would make it illegal to
drink alcohol in private parking lots. The so-called open container
laws now in force say nothing about parking lots, making drinking in
such lots a perfectly legal way to spend one's evening in
unincorporated Orange County, Scarlatos said.

The Board of County Commissioners is slated to take up the proposals
in late February.

"I think these are going to have an impact immediately," said Bob
Spivey, county assistant to the director of public safety. "You have
to keep in mind that prostitution and drugs go together. So if you
attack one side of it or another, you're still making an impact on the
drug problem."