Park City police cracking down on prostitution

Police in Park City are hoping to crack down on the world's oldest profession by putting new regulations on escort services.

The regulations are going into effect before the Sundance Film Festival begins on Jan. 18, but police insist they are not targeting the celebrity-studded festival.

"It (Sundance) provides a larger group of clientele that look for that service," Park City Police Lt. Rick Ryan said.

The Park City Council recently passed an ordinance, categorizing escort services as sexually oriented businesses and requiring escorts to undergo police background checks. Park City's escort regulations have been notoriously more relaxed than many cities in the Salt Lake Valley.

"What they were doing is coming up out of the valley," Ryan said Thursday. "They would apply for a business license. They would initially get a small office somewhere that was never occupied, and several business names were using the same location."

The new ordinance attempts to make Park City's escort guidelines more like those in other Utah cities such as Salt Lake City.

Among the changes: Escort services with business addresses in Park City have to be staffed. They will have to maintain a log of their clients that can be inspected by police at any time. The escorts themselves will have to come to city hall to undergo background checks, be fingerprinted and be questioned by police.

Escorts will also have to provide descriptions of their height, weight, hair color and eye color and written proof that they are at least 21 years old. They also must list any nicknames, Web site names, screen names or stage names.

"They will have their pictures taken and they will have to have in their possession an ID card issued by the city," Ryan said.

Several escort services listing Park City addresses declined to comment to the Deseret Morning News about the new regulations.

Police hope the new regulations will crack down on prostitution, which has been on the increase in the resort town. Ryan said the Park City Police Department has been able to track an increase in prostitution arrests and correlate it with the number of escort-service business licenses that were being issued. In February 2006, officers conducted a number of escort-business stings, which resulted in a half-dozen arrests.

"We have 100 percent arrest rates on each of our stings," Ryan said. "One hundred percent of them were for prostitution."

Since the regulations recently went into effect, city officials said they have not had any escort-service licenses issued. Police have had no escorts walk through their doors to undergo the rigorous new rules.

"It's going to be a test of time to see what happens," Ryan said. "We hope we've discouraged them from coming in here and setting up business as they have in the past."

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E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com