The New Orleans Police Department, the Louisiana State Police, and the Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control (ATC) have raided eight French Quarter strip clubs in the past 10 days. At a Monday press conference, both NOPD and ATC claimed the raids were the result of a multi-month, ongoing “human trafficking” operation, yet they also admitted they made no trafficking arrests, nor did they identify any victims of trafficking. Instead, what the ATC alleged occurred inside the French Quarter strip clubs was not trafficking, but 28 counts of violating an administrative statute that forbids liquor license holders from “permitting any prostitute to frequent the licensed premises or to solicit patrons for prostitution.” Of the arrests, ATC Commissioner Juana Marine-Lombard said, “Prostitution in and of itself is sex trafficking.”
“In “Anti-Trafficking” New Orleans Strip Club Raids, Police Make No Trafficking Arrests” by Melissa Gira Grant for The Appeal