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<p>SYDNEY, Australia - Brothel owners in the southern state of Victoria have called for an exemption to a new ban on smoking in the workplace, saying customers like to light up after sex.</p> <p>The Australian Adult Entertainment Industry has written to Victoria's health minister arguing that new laws banning smoking in bars and brothels could push prostitution back into the streets, according to a report in the Sunday Herald Sun newspaper.</p>

Santa Ana - A Southern California woman was in custody in Texas Wednesday on charges of operating brothels in Dallas and the Los Angeles area using women smuggled into the country from South Korea and Mexico. Jong Ock Mao, 47, of West Covina was arrested Tuesday in Madisonville, Texas after a 40-count indictment was unsealed in Santa Ana federal court accusing her and three others of conspiracy, money laundering and violating the Travel Act, a federal law that prohibits the use of interstate facilities to conduct illegal business. Federal agents raided six businesses, including tanning salons, chiropractic offices and spas,...

When federal authorities released documents Monday accusing longtime brothel owner Joe Richards of trying to bribe Nye County Commission Chairwoman Candice Trummell, it quickly became the talk of the town in Pahrump. But to former County Commissioner Cameron McRae, the big news about Richards wasn't news at all. "It's about time they get him. He offered me money two or three times, and I went to the FBI and got the cold shoulder," said McRae, who served on the commission from 1991 through 2002, several of those years as chairman.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Four Chinese citizens pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal charges related to running an underground network that sold Asian women for sex out of Bay Area brothels. The four entered their pleas in U.S. District Court to charges including conspiracy to harbor aliens, money laundering and tax evasion. Prosecutors said they led a $700,000 enterprise that transported Taiwanese, mainland Chinese and Korean women to the United States to sell them for sex in 10 residential brothels in San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale and San Mateo. Xiao Feng Shen, 35; Jia Jing Chu, 34; Yan Song, 42; and...

Mini-brothels get go-ahead to operate on your doorstep By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor(Filed: 18/01/2006) Your view: time for change?Prostitutes will be allowed to work together in mini-brothels under plans published by the Government yesterday.   New laws will see prostitutes getting help for drug and alcohol problems rather than being fined At present, only a single prostitute working from home or a room escapes prosecution provided she does not solicit for business. Premises with two or more women offering sex are defined as brothels and are unlawful.The Government aims to change the legal definition to allow three individuals,...

November 23, 2005 CHANGE OF PLANS Fleiss to go on her own RICHARDS OUT; 'HOLLYWOOD MADAM' STILL PLANS TO BUILD CRYSTAL BROTHEL FOR WOMEN By DOUG McMURDO PVT DOUG McMURDO / PVT Heidi Fleiss talks on her cell phone Monday. She explained her goal of opening Nevada's first brothel to feature male prostitutes that would cater to a female-only clientele. Richards pulls out of male prostitute plan The following is a verbatim account of Crystal brothel owner Joe Richards' letter to members of the Nye County Board of Commissioners and Sheriff Tony DeMeo in their capacity as the county's liquor...

TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) - The Mexican border city of Tijuana, a weekend playground for U.S. visitors, plans to give prostitutes electronic health cards and regulate brothels in an effort to clean up its gritty image. Under a bylaw passed last month, the city is forcing about 50 clandestine brothels to meet public safety and hygiene standards, like putting clean sheets on beds, or face closure. "We have a lot of prostitution but few controls," Martha Montejano, head of the council's health and human development commission, said on Wednesday. "This aims to combat sexually transmitted diseases and bring order to the...

BUTTE, Mont., May 26 - Rudy Giecek found the mummified body of a canary some years back. It had been wrapped in newspapers, he said, then placed in a tin can, and finally enclosed in a small purse before being sealed - probably around 1910, he guessed, by the can's markings - behind the bricks of a chimney in one of Butte's oldest houses of prostitution, the Dumas. "A lot of the girls kept canaries," Mr. Giecek said. The canary in the frayed blue purse, with its freight of long-ago private grief, went into the display case of the Dumas...

Nevada Lawmakers Consider Taxing Brothels Fri Apr 15, 8:26 AM ET Oddly Enough - Reuters SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Nevada lawmakers are considering a bill that would tax the state's 28 legal brothels, the only regulated bordellos in the United States. The brothels pay local taxes and license fees but have never been taxed by the state, which under the bill would impose a 10 percent tax on drinks and food and collect a $2 fee on each customer. The Nevada Brothel Association backs the bill, but not all bordello owners think it is a good idea. Dennis Hof, owner...

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Sometimes going undercover in Texas means no cover at all. Houston police, long thwarted in their campaign against prostitution by an internal policy that barred officers from removing their clothes, have reaped results by shedding that unwritten rule. The change in tactics that allows vice squad officers to undress in pursuit of evidence is part of a crackdown on suspected brothels that advertise themselves as day spas, lingerie modeling studios, massage parlors and "stress relief clinics." Two investigations using the new rules have resulted in organized crime charges against six business proprietors and dozens of misdemeanor prostitution...

BELLEVUE -- Customers looking for sexual pleasure at legitimate massage parlors here have triggered the closure of two businesses that are accused of being fronts for prostitution, Bellevue police said yesterday. In the investigations, which involved the Eastside Narcotics Task Force and spanned months, nine people were arrested, including at least one mail-order bride, illegal Chinese immigrants, U.S. citizens and two men in the Chinese army.Bellevue police spokesman Michael Chiu said starting in December, police received tips, including letters, from at least one legitimate massage business in the Northup Way area.Customers reportedly inquired about services beyond the normal rubdown. The...

NATO urged to ban troops from brothels Fri 5 March, 2004 13:06 By John Chalmers BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Western troops abroad should be banned from brothels and sex clubs which fuel an illegal trade in women forced into prostitution, the United States and Norway have urged their NATO allies. The two nations urged the Western defence alliance to mount a coordinated clampdown on the human trafficking that sends women to work as "modern-day slaves" in bars frequented by troops on missions overseas. "Trafficking in human beings is part of the dark side of globalisation," said U.S. ambassador to NATO Nicholas...

BERLIN (Reuters) - The German city of Cologne is resorting to a "sex tax" on brothels to boost its revenues after national reforms left local authorities short of cash. City authorities confirmed on Friday they were extending the existing "pleasure tax" -- already levied on casinos and amusement arcades -- to brothels, erotic massage parlours and table-dancing clubs. Cologne expects to triple its pleasure tax revenues, Inge Schuermann, a city spokeswoman told Reuters. "This is about making taxes fair but also because we are more than up to our necks in financial problems," she said, shortly after Germany's parliament approved...

A ban on allowing school classrooms to be used as brothels and strip bars has been ordered by education officials in Ukraine. Headteachers in the country have often leased out excess space to firms to raise extra income for the school coffers. No checks are made on how the headteachers choose to lease the space and in the past, bars and clubs have been opened on school property. The latest discovery that brothels are plying their trade next to the school playground has prompted the education ministry to act and an investigation has started into what ways schools' excess space...

Brothel to Put Lawmaker to Work for a Day Tue Aug 27, 8:29 AM ET SYDNEY (Reuters) - A conservative Australian national politician may have to spend a day cleaning a brothel in the Western Australian gold fields after its madam won him for a day. Workers at the famous Langtree's brothel in the mining town of Kalgoorlie said Tuesday that madam Mary-Anne Kenworthy outbid all others in a Rotary Club raffle for a day's worth of work from Liberal party member of parliament Barry Haase. "She bid A$1,000 ($540)," said a receptionist. "(She'll get him) cleaning and doing tours,...