As a New York State Assemblyman, Mamdani co-sponsored legislation that would decriminalize consensual prostitution.
By Catholics for Catholics
Under Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s new mayor, at least one thing is advancing and getting bigger: prostitution.
Mamdani admires former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s lax attitude on prostitution, and the city is now feeling the consequences.
According to a story by the Daily Wire, prostitution-related detentions along Queens’ infamous Roosevelt Avenue have been reduced drastically, and local leaders say the sex trade there is booming. A 40-year-old Manhattan man identified only as John told the New York Post he gladly rides the subway out to the stretch known as the “Market of Sweethearts” because prices are low and police, in his telling, can do little to stop it. Along the corridor, sex workers reportedly solicit passersby openly. New York repealed its law prohibiting loitering for the purpose of prostitution in February 2021.
According to NYPD figures reported to the Post, officers made 193 prostitution-related arrests along Roosevelt Avenue through September 13, compared with 468 during the same period last year, a decline of nearly 59%.
The new figures contrast sharply with the old ones.
The decline follows an enforcement crackdown under former Mayor Eric Adams. In a June 2025 update, City Hall reported that prostitution-related arrests along the corridor had increased 477.8% compared with the same period a year earlier, while reported sex crimes had fallen 52.5%. Operation Restore Roosevelt, launched in October 2024, had resulted in 397 prostitution-related arrests by that update.
Nevertheless, Curis Sliwa, the former mayoral candidate of New York City warned before the election that Mamdani would probably make the crisis grave. As a state assemblyman, Mamdani supported Cecilia’s Law, legislation that would decriminalize consensual adult prostitution.
“Not enforcing a law is effectively repealing a law,” former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. “We saw many laws simply not enforced during de Blasio’s time in office and quality of life dipped. This issue is particularly dangerous because, along with the poor people swept into this life who are hurt and abused, it empowers gangs, organized crime and other criminal enterprises and entire neighborhoods suffer. Anyone who remembers the Bad Old Days of Times Square does not want to go back and that is exactly what will happen if this comes to pass.”
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