by Jan Logie
The Manukau City Council (Regulation of Prostitution in Specified Places) Bill, a local bill which proposes to make bylaws prohibiting the business of prostitution or commercial sexual services in specified public places in Manukau City, has been before the Local Government & Environment Select Committee since 2010. Submissions had already closed on this bill but they’ve opened the public submission process up again.
This is because of the creation of the Auckland ‘Super City’ Council, which includes Manukau City, who have now indicated their intention to take over as the promoter of this bill. This move would mean that if passed, these bylaws would now apply to greater Auckland, not just Manukau City. Because of the wider implications of this change, the public now have another chance to submit on this bill.
The Green Party opposes this bill in its current form and will continue to oppose if it is extended to apply to the greater Auckland region. If passed, this would enable the council to re-criminalise soliciting in particular areas (of its choosing), which effectively recreates exactly the imposition on the rights of sex workers that existed before the passing of the Prostitution Reform Act 2003.
This bill would see a step backwards from the gains made through the Prostitution Law Reform Act that we fought so hard for. It will enable councils to create their own criminal laws and impose a $2000 fine for soliciting, which is ten times the amount that sex workers were fined under the repealed law. All the concerns we had back in 2003 will apply again if this law change happens – sex workers will be pushed underground, unable to take time to make proper assessments of clients, unlikely to take complaints of abuse to the police, be hindered in moving into alternative employment due to criminal convictions, and could discourage safe sex as condoms will be used in evidence.
The concerns of businesses and now local residents in Manukau have been investigated by the Ministry of Justice, as well as a previous Select Committee. These bodies argued against this “highly restrictive brothel control bylaw” because of the inappropriateness of councils to set criminal law, as well as arguing that there were other steps that could be taken to improve the environment, i.e. limit the sale of alcohol, which would be far more likely to address the local issues without causing harm to the workers.
We’ve written a submission guide, with key points on the bill and details on how to submit. Submissions can be made online or sent in via post and must be received by 5.00pm on Wednesday 29 February 2012, so there’s only a week left to have your say!
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare | Justice & Democracy | Parliament | Society & Culture by Jan Logie on Wed, February 22nd, 2012
Tags: legislation, local government, Manukau City, Prostitution, Prostitution Reform Act, women
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
- are woken by cars and drunk people all night.
- whose children can’t even play in their own front yards because used needles and broken bottles are regularly disposed there.
You can’t open a petrol station just anywhere, or a welding shop, or even a corner dairy. Hell, I had to get my neighbours permission just to build a small deck.
Yet you want to take away peoples right to not have their lives completely destroyed, their house value decimated, and made unsalable, by a brothel opening up 24/7 right beside them.
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Rather than zero concern, Jan seems to be saying that the Green Party agrees with the Ministry of Justice and the previous Select Committee “that there were other steps that could be taken to improve the environment, i.e. limit the sale of alcohol, which would be far more likely to address the local issues without causing harm to the workers”.
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There is no way a whore should be out on the street touting for business so blatantly and openly at fathers and grandfathers taking their kids to school.
The problem for Jan is that she sits in the sterile surrounding of the office and is not on the coalface.
Come and visit places like Northcrest (much cleaned up now that the wardens are here with an office in the car park) but still bit seedy, and Hunters Corner. Then revisit the statement
It is a step forward not backwards. It gets the whores off the streets.
No problems with legalised brothels in commercial and industrial areas, that were they should be.
Brothels in residential areas are again a no no.
Like tinny houses they dont last long, there are plenty of ways to move people on.
It is not the legalising of prostitution that is the problem, but the lack of control over whores on the streets.
This legislation fixes that problem.
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People seem a little confused about this proposed bill, it has nothing to do with residential location brothels, nor is it about street prostitution being made illegal.
It is about problematic street prostitution in one council area.
And whether the right response to this, is to legislate specific legislation for any council who seeks this or to grant specific councils authority in this area.
Given any legislation could/would lead to other councils seeking similar legislation, parliament should heed advice about a proper way to go about this. That would mean any go ahead should look at nationwide legislation to restrict street prostitution from residential streets (probably defining this as some distance from a house down the road where these lead into CBD’s) with an exemption from inner city/CBD’s where there were apartments.
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There is nothing safe about prostitution now – just like there was nothing safe about it prior to 2003. In my opinion it is more dangerous now. It is well known in that industry that the main people who work the streets are the lowest of the low. They are the junkies who have no other option. They are the women who are being pimped out by gangs so every cent of their money is going to organised crime. They are the children who are underage – sometimes being pimped out by their own parents to fund their addictions – who can’t legally work anywhere else so the nearest street corner is their only choice.
Do the Green Party REALLY advocate for child abuse, human trafficking, and enabling drug abusers to feed their illegal addictions – while pouring more money into the illicit drug market here in New Zealand -instead of helping them? Do the Green Party really support an industry that does nothing but encourage the using and abusing of women who are considered lower in society than the men that use and abuse them?
Are you aware that for every one pound of methamphetamine that is manufactured here in New Zealand FIVE pounds of toxic waste is absorbed into our environment? Every prostitute that i met while i was involved in that world was a P addict. Is the Green Party happy to be supporting our local meth manufacturers?
Do you actually know ANYTHING about this industry or the people in it? I will tell you something about the people in that industry. I never met one happy prostitute who wanted to be where she was. I never met one who looked forward to her next booking. I never met one that was not a drug addict. I never met one who had not been abused in some form or another in her life. I never met one who was not desperately looking for a way out of that life. I never met one woman who did anything wise with the money that she had earned.
I hope this Bill is successful. The only thing i would change about it – is i would have men charged if they attempt to solicit a prostitute – instead of the women. No clients = no street prostitution.
I am disappointed that The Greens seem to be happy to encourage an industry that is so destructive to every woman who becomes involved in it.
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Jacqueline, the 2003 legislation was proposed because of representations from those working in the “industry” and by organisations such as the NZPC.
Your own contribution here reads like some submissions made then and those made since to councils in opposition to prostitution itself, whenever the issue is raised at a national or local level. And by the way the proposed bill does not attempt to make prostitution illegal on the streets – it is more akin to banning “street vendors” from operating in certain locations.
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@Jacqueline 5:11 PM
I think you should also self-identify as a fundamentalist Christian, which reading your blog you obviously are. And I am very sorry for you that you are someone whose life has been fucked around by the odious Michael Lhaws.
The reality is that the social harms that are being blamed on prostitution are ancillary to it, rather than caused by it. There is already legislation in place to address noise (Resource Management Act), broken bottles and syringes being discarded in the street (Litter Act), underage sex work (Prostitution Reform Act), disorderly behaviour (Summary Offences Act) and drug abuse (Misuse of Drugs Act, although I favour the Portugese approach of decriminalising which has reduced drug-related harm hugely in that country).
None of these are an inherent part of the sex industry. And if local authorities didn’t apply such a restrictive approach to brothel licensing, perhaps the street prostitutes that this Bill is supposedly concerned about would have somewhere to work from that is both safer for them and less disruptive to the wider community.
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To address a couple of specific concerns and comments -
I’ve spent a significant amount of time working alongside with the Prostitutes collective, who a just that a collective of workers and advocates for workers. Our policy and response to this bill is absolutely based in the experience of workers. At the risk of doing a some of my best friends…I know workers in my personal life as well as professional life.
Secondly in response to the concerns of locals. I have visited the area, I realize the stress people and families are feeling. I would note though that even the local police don’t think this is the solution. There are very tangible things that can be done that will not hurt an already marginalized group.
And to back up SPC’s first comment – this isn’t about about local control of brothels every city currently has the power to create by laws around the location of brothels and in fact it has been suggested that part of the problem in Manukau is because there is a very restrictive bylaw in place now limiting the number of brothels.
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I’m think that protecting young children from exposure to prostitution on Manurewa central streets overides hurting a “maginalised group”.
So what are you suggesting can be done to remove street prostitution away from innocent childrens eyes?
You are of the opinion that the rights and freedoms of the “marginalised Group” are more important then children?
Lack of brothels (do you have a count?) in Manukau is not the issue.
Street prostitution is.
Please address the issue.
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@Gerrit 10:01 PM
I am all for protecting young children from prostitution. And the law reflects that – you can’t lawfully work as a prostitute under 18 years of age, and anyone who employs, encourages or coerces someone under that age to do so is dealt with very severely under the criminal law.
But you are talking about something different from that – pretending that in the minds of young people prostitution doesn’t exist, and supposedly “protecting” them from any knowledge that it does.
Hey, I knew what a prostitute does for a living from about age 8 or 9. You seem to assume that young people should be “protected” from knowledge about certain aspects of society. I think a far better approach is for young people to know the realities of the world.
Teach them the facts, and they will learn from them, and hopefully prosper, both socially and economically. Deny them the facts and they will much more likely distrust civil society and grow up to be the prejudiced bigots who bash prostitutes, queers, transexuals, immigrants and anyone else whose lives they don’t understand and they somehow feel threatened by.
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Are you serious? You really think the litter law will stop used syringes and broken bottles being dumped in peoples front yards and nearby playgrounds?
With all due respect, I’ve never heard anything so out of touch with reality.
Jan says “I have visited the area, I realize the stress people and families are feeling.”
So what are you going to do to help people whose lives have been turned upside down by a brothel opening up next door?
Their house becomes about as valuable and saleable as a 3 bedroom split-level house in Bexley.
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Are you aware that the issue is street prostitution and not residential brothels? And specifically whether legislation for one city is the right way to address street prostitution at the parliamentary level.
Street prostitution is where sex workers use a well trafficked area advertise their (regular) presence to potential clients. It has nothing to do with those working from residential properties – whether their own home or a supposedly small scale brothel located in such neighbourhoods.
PS In most cases neighbours do not even know if a sex worker is working in some house in their neighbourhood. And so there is no impact on property values.
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I will be making a submission.
In favour.
I absolutely think local bodies should be able to decide if any given area is inappropriate for prostitutes to operate on the streets. Power to local communities. Far be it from central government to tell people in Manukau, or any city that they should tolerate sex workers on their street. If prostitutes are at risk from the things you say, the simple response is to operate within the law, outside of prohibited areas.
Local communities should have a say in this – just the same way as they should have a say if a bottle store or pokie machines are being foist upon them. I’m sure the Green Party doesn’t advocate an open-slather approach to those industries being allowed to set up shop anywhere they like.
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Toad,
Dont be so pious, school is a primary school where children are as young as 5.
So you OK with street whores propositioning males at the school gate?
Wierd
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All this bill will do is punish those prostitutes who are unable to get work in a brothel, and force them to move elsewhere. Which will be doubtless somewhere closer to a school, or someone at a different croquet club will get offended, and the whole thing will start again.
Bob McCroskrie’s vindictive NIMBY attitude towards prostitution is what creates the issue in the first place. There are abundant places in Hunter’s Corner and Manurewa that are more than 500m from the nearest school, on commercial byways rather than the main street, where brothels could be set up in a suitable manner. Indeed some of these locations are the predominant places for street prostitution precisely because they are out of the way. Yet McCroskie’s mouth-frothing minions form torchwielding mobs and try to drive the unbelievers (oops, I mean prostitutes) from their wicked and evil hiding places. Him and said minions then singularly fail to realise that they just shift the problem to somewhere more inconvenient for them.
If they just set up suitable places where prostitution could take place, they could easily keep it sanitary and safe. Instead their obsession with exposing prostitution because of their backward moralising wrecks any chance of this.
I have plenty enough experience of wholesome Papatoetoe/Manurewa bigotry to know that that is the true problem here, not street prostitution.
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Since becoming involved I have found that this is a situation that is debilitating for the local Hunters Corner and Manurewa areas. It is an extreme situation that is peculiar to these areas. Probably Otahuhu also has prostitution issues.
In Hunters Crn, Papatoetoe the street prostitutes work in areas that blend/merge into the residential areas (Sutton Cres and Hoteo Street)where the people living in houses have to endure prostitutes and their clients operating throughout the nights. Surely these people deserve some respite.
Could I come down to Wellington and discuss this matter with the Green Party? I will bring photographs and other evidence to illustrate the problem.
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@Councillor George Wood, Auckland Council 8:26 PM
But, George, is it the street prostitution that is really the problem? Or is it the ancillary issues, such as littering, disorderly behaviour, drug and alcohol abuse, and young people being pimped into under-age sex work that are the real issues?
My take on it, George, and I have been to Hunter’s Corner on a couple of Friday nights, is that it is not the prostitutes working there causing the social problems. It is the hangers on – some of the pimps and some of the punters – who behave in a disorderly manner, leave offensive litter, and urinate, vomit and defaecate in the streets.
I would also suggest that the Auckland Council should ensure that prostitutes have the option of safe private places to work from in any neighbourhood, rather than being forced by restrictive Council regulation to have no viable workplace near where they live than the streets.
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Ivy,
Nice to be thought of as obstinately or intolerantly devoted, to my own opinions and prejudices.
We can always rely on the labelling and pigeon holing of sentiment to be described as bigotted when the lack of faith in your own argument is overwhelming.
You would have been proud of a group of young feminist mothers giving the whores a right verbal serve.
Local action does not require police or legislation, just a bunch of dedicated woman to do what the parliament cant.
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gerrit,
Just to clarify, are you claiming that there were prostitutes working/standing at the school gate at opening and closing of school?
I don’t find this credible, at most schools the available parking space is full and there is no opportunity for clients to stop. So pro’s would not work those times – in fact those working the street generally don’t work daytime hours at all.
In this area an exception?
I have read no media reports of work in the daytime in front of the school. Is this an oversight by the media? If so, why not submit your account to the Select Committe.
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Gerrit; an aside I can’t seem to shake – is calling someone a ‘whore’ participating in their abuse?
If not, I see a whole lot of ‘Whores’ who get by with different title.
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PS; and dishonesty offends me more than any streetwalker.
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Happily, in Papatoetoe, the Hoteo Avenue/Sutton Crescent ‘nexus’ of street prostitution activity is quite away from the nearest school. There’s plenty of room there, and Charles St and Eric Baker Pl such that no prostitution need be close to houses.
Surely police, council and others can liaise with NZPC about how best to patrol the residential parts of Hoteo Ave, Charles St and Sutton Cres to make sure those residents aren’t being disrupted? Or find safe locations for prostitution out of the way of residents?.
Frankly the only thing debilitating about Hunter’s Corner is Hunter’s Plaza, which should never have been built. Or at least, should have been demolished after the Georgie Pie closed (a beacon of light now long replaced by $2 shops and lotto outlets).
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Is this a conversation about ‘propositioning’ children, young as five?
I’m fresh out of get real Pills – but Tic-Tacs are a good start.
What is it you think they don’t know? Don’t,in fact, deserve to know?
My over-riding (hold off wid de steamy jokes) of getting out of school for the first few years was, “I wish they’d told me THAT much”. A lot of people took all my parents money to waste my time – that’s a good score if you can get it!
Indeed we seek to cloister our young from reality til it hits them with a Bang – the kind of Bang you read about in the road statistics…..
School is nothing if not the intentional and unintentional contagion of ideas – I would be a better man had I never gone to a kiwi ‘school’.
Somewhere, early on, this conversation took a street called ‘Defunct’.
Ah Photo! onyer matey! And they Ban Phil,U must be thrilled….
Beyond my bit of fun – this is a physcho/socio/economic equation – which many women have been able to escape (thus far). And if it was a Loved one we discuss, well well well.(How does the slut/whore title look now!)
To argue against ages of evolution is to hold back the hands of time – it’ll tear yr bloody arms off! (or perhaps that should read – it’ll tear your arms off bloody) – Nothing personal – some of you lucky people are able to sleep – some of you will take that for granted (as well)!
The one true prediction is ‘Change’ – it is metered out in exactly the amount of courage and love we are willing to show others.
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Aha – the vernacular that upsets.
Ever been cozy in the CZ (comfort zone) watching the the telly, when Suddenly, the volume doubles – and a whole lot of beery man-voices exhort all to
‘Show Them Your Crack’
(it’s an ad for chipped windscreens).
This is the Kiwi version of Trolling for Business ‘politely’ happens all the time…..
Or, you can opt for the Paul Henry Sophisticated Set, beckoning to
“Cheat on your TV!”
“Look at Me Sharon!!! I’m a 42 inch Plasma!!!”
Who can’t show her those ‘New Things’…mmmm?
So go ahead – CHEAT – it’s sooo gooood…
Ask your kids what they make of that horrific genre?
And they say Child Abuse is endemic
Wonder where it starts?
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SPC,
Yes it is true and the soliciting was done (since the wardens have been around this is generally not as prevalent as before).
If you have never been to Manurewa it is hard to explain but Northcrest sits opposite the school gates on a very busy corner. There is a large car park behind the shops where parents park and walk their kids through the road access tunnel (or the medical centre thoroughfare) to the school opposite.
So technically it is not “right outside” the gates. Happens mainly around the carpark and the tunnel access road.
Why is it not in the news? Who knows.
And is Mark the new PhilU?
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Aw Gerrit – sleeplessness doesn’t qualify – I’m a goner!
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Just say it Gerrit – you miss him terribly – as we all do…..
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Although I cannot claim to know definitively, I think the schools argument is a red herring. The problem is when it occurs near peoples’ homes. Family homes.
Prostitution, especially street-based, is an activity that often attracts unsavoury individuals and crime – from both the workers and the clients. There is often a drug factor, as Jacqueline alluded to, there are sometimes gangs involved, and this is not always the fault of prostitutes. Often they are victims of circumstance, sometimes victims of much worse. This is not about blaming prostitutes at all. It is about respecting the right of residents to not be exposed to sex work and it’s accompaniments.
That doesn’t change the fact that prostitution can follow and be followed by other criminal and unsavoury behaviour, and people should have a right to their families to not be exposed to and disturbed by any of it. I think this is a very strange position from the Green Party who wants to regulate & tax so many other industries because of externalities on people and the environment, but the externalities from prostitution don’t count, and the sex industry should not be regulated (almost suggesting that the free market will deliver the best outcome…).
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PhotoNz
You’ll perhaps recall that here in Chch the boys in blue went in over this very issue, and still continue to do so.
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The problem here is that the Greens have taken an extremist position on this issue.
And it is also illogical.
I won’t work in a coal mine because I don’t think it is safe enough and I have more respect for my life and the future of my wife and children to take such risks.
A woman that is thinking about using her vagina to make money by allowing dysfunctional low life’s to place their dirty penises in it seems like a far greater risk to ones safety and especially ones dignity.
I see that Jan has no problem in women abusing their vaginas in such a soul destroying way.
Nice, really nice.
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The likelihood is that clients are more likely to have safe sex with prostitutes than the average drunk couple hooking up at the weekend.
Many clients, if not most, are married men. Many transactions take place in our finest hotels. And the price of the top clubs is a lot higher than the low waged can afford.
Those who wish more prostitutes had other choices can consider the difficulty financing study, our low minimum wage, low wages in general, the cost of buying homes and paying off mortgages (a lot of married women do this when husbands lose their job – so watch out for this in Wellington), the poverty and now the increasing lack of opportunity for those on the DPB, the lack of help to drug addicts, the consequences of abuse on children and younger females – who are some of the women who later work in this industry. But then they probably will not link their own positions on these issues to the supply of women into prostitution.
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This is how wikipedia reports the issue.
“In 1997 a number of groups came together to hold a Women’s Forum in Wellington, out of which a working group developed to draft a bill, including the NZPC, academics, women’s groups (New Zealand Federation of Business and Professional Women, National Council of Women, YWCA), and the AIDS Foundation. Other individuals included legal volunteers and MPs, in particular Maurice Williamson (National, Pakuranga 1987- ), Associate Minister of Health (1990-6) and Katherine O’Regan (National, Waipa 1984-1996, List 1996-9), who championed the bill in parliament.”
Labour returned to power (1999-2008) and Tim Barnett (Labour Christchurch Central 1996-2008) assumed responsibility for introducing it as a Private Member’s Bill to decriminalise prostitution. This was based on the harm reduction model of New South Wales (1996). The bill was introduced on 21 September 2000 and placed in the ballot box, being drawn as number 3 and debated on 8 November. This was a Private Member’s Bill, and theoretically members were allowed a conscience vote. However the three members of the 1999-2002 coalition (Labour, Greens, Alliance) all had decriminalisation in their manifestos.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_New_Zealand
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@Shunda barunda 5:07 PM
Sorry, Shunda, but I keep my penis clean (even though I don’t pay for sex) and I think most guys do for the sake of their own health.
And even if a guy has a dirty penis, surely the use of a condom, which almost all women working in the sex industry insist on now (and the Prostitution Reform Act has helped enable them to do that), will minimise any chance of infection transmission.
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So! McWilliams’ – we meet again!!!!
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Condoms are a legal requirement, Prostitution Reform Act 2003, Sections 8 and 9, fine for non compliance is $10K if the worker is part of a business, or $2K if the worker is independent.
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Gerrit has chased away all my favourite source material.
Mate – I’ve got half a Book and 200 wasted Hours…..must you call them Whores???!!!
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Gerrit you got propositioned once okay sometimes stuff like that happen to people? How do you think women feel dealing with this regularily? I have been propositioned many times by creeps, sometimes offering me money when I refuse their advances, when waiting outside a motel, walking home from work when its dark as I dont have a car in baggy pants and a sweater, on suburban streets which aren’t prostitute areas, funny how much men complain when they get a tiny bit of what many women deal with on a regular basis. But I do find it appalling she did that in front of your grandkids, that is disgusting.
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