There’s pushback against the sex worker situation on both sides of the Bay, as the new Oakland Police chief is promising a coming crackdown on International Boulevard, while Shotwell Street residents have sued SF over sex work on that street.

A Tuesday night report from KTVU details a burgeoning sex work scene on the sidewalks of Oakland’s International Bouleveard, and residents of the East Oakland neighborhood of San Antonio complaining of what they say is complete indifference from the police. “Police passing by, they don’t do anything,” one neighborhood resident who identified himself only as Terrance told KTVU.

But that station adds that new Oakland police chief Floyd Mitchell is vowing a sex work crackdown on that area.

“You’re going to see a huge surge down there on International Blvd within the coming weeks to address these issues," Mitchell told residents at a recent public safety meeting, per KTVU. "We’re going to hold these individuals that are promoting sex trafficking on our boulevards accountable to federal crimes.”

There were not many details provided about how this "huge surge" will be handled. Though KTVU notes that the Oakland Police Department plans to devote “a lot of overtime money on targeting sex trafficking,” and there would be involvement from federal agencies, though Mitchell did not say which agencies.

The above KPIX report is from late April, but describes a common issue in the law enforcement fight against streets being overrun by illegal sex work trade. Oakland added barricades on East 15th Street, which worked, but residents say it merely pushed that trade over to International Boulevard.

That probably sounds familiar to San Francisco Mission District residents, who will recall that the barricades and bollards were put up on Capp Street last year to deter the sex trade there. And that apparently worked, too, though it seems to have just moved the sex work over to Shotwell Street, where pranksters have done some satirical work with the Slow Streets signs.

But Shotwell Street residents are largely not amused. In fact, they’re angry enough that they’ve filed a lawsuit against the City of San Francisco, according to the Chronicle, alleging that the city has complacently allowed conditions where sex acts are being performed in public, and other nuisances that come with johns cruising streets at low speeds.

“Instead of solving the problem, the city simply moved the nuisance to Shotwell between 19th and 21st streets,” the lawsuit alleges.

That part of the Mission District has attracted sidewalk sex work for decades; it is easily accessible from US 101, and the residential nature of the streets allows for that low-speed cruising. But the Chronicle made multiple visits to Shotwell Street after dark and observes that “business has picked up” recently, and the spot has become more attractive to street-level sex workers.

“I’ve got two kids to support, and I can make $1,000 a night here,” one woman named Rene told the Chronicle. “A regular job don’t pay that.”

Mayor London Breed’s office told the Chronicle they’re meeting with Shotwell area residents on Wednesday to discuss new sex-work deterrence plans. Per the Chron, these plans include “‘pan basher’ traffic barriers to block off the street, which could gut the bottom of any vehicle that drives over them; security cameras to monitor the roads and sidewalks; and ‘Dear John’ letters to be sent to motorists suspected of cruising for or purchasing sex.”

But in both Oakland and San Francisco, these are the umpteenth so-called crackdowns on a problem that has never gone away, and it’s debatable whether either city has ever made a dent in it. Law enforcement efforts seem to merely move the problem somewhere else, and have never really eliminated the presence of sex work. After all, they call it the “world’s oldest profession” for a reason.

Related: The SFPD Brags About Busting Johns Seeking Sex Workers on Capp Street [SFist]

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist