As much as I know I'm ****ing in the wind...
There are a few of us here, like Eddy and Ken (who I'm sure I must know in person...) who remember how things were before things became as they are now.
As long as I can remember (1987), there were always prostitutes in Sosua. But they were in Casa del Sol (later Oxy2) or in Charamicos. If you wanted that sort of thing, you went out and got it. If you didn't want it, you didn't have to deal with it. Being accosted (or 'approached' if you prefer) in downtown el Batey was unheard of.
Meanwhile, bars and restaurants did brisk business. They shut relatively early and if you wanted to keep partying, you headed over to Charamicos, where you knew what you were getting into (ridiculously greasy heartstopper fries at Cafe Maria, for example). Hotels were full year round.
Slowly but surely, hookers started gaining footholds in Sosua, and when Plaza Marinero opened (with enough political influence to pull it off), all bets were off. Suddenly you didn't have to get on a motoconcho to go get some hookers, rather you couldn't avoid it.
More to the point, there was no longer a difference between the family friendly tourism areas (el Batey, in general) and the single 'company-seeking' tourism. So the family friendly tourism went elsewhere. Leaving us, over time, with only the tourism we now have.
The economic consequence of this shift in paradigm should be fairly obvious to anyone who lived it.
Now people make the argument that without prostitution based tourism we're done. To a certain degree they're correct. If the sex tourism in Sosua suddenly packed up and left, there would be a serious short and medium negative effect on the local economy. Much like when that same toursim undermined and eventually destroyed the family tourism.
But that's not the same as saying that we can;t survive without it. Cabarete manages to control it somewhat (although less than in the past) and manages to do reasonably well despite it (although the negatives of prositution are felt there as well).
And it's not the same as saying we can't reverse some of our misfortune by controlling it.
I fail to see why we need open prositution in the centre of town, for example. If tourists really come thousands of miles just for prostitutes, is it really that unreasonable to think they would travel a mile more to find their hook-up? Can we not move this business to the outskirts of town? Does it HAVE to be right downtown?
Does it HAVE to be out of control? Can we not expect those people living from the proceeds of prostitution to control what happens in their own establishments? In the countries we come from, bar owners are somewhat responsible for what happens in their bars. And when minors enter, they are fined and shut down for a while. Which is why bars in Sosua (apparently) check for ID. I see nothing wrong with enforcing these minimum standards of behaviour.
I only wish there was year-round enforcement, which would be better than the all-or-nothing approach that understandably offends so many.
Mind you, I would prefer that we had a long-term sustainable vision of Sosua that we all worked toward, but after almost a quarter century of advocating that, I'm coming to terms with the fact that we get the town we deserve. I live in Sosua with my family, but I drive to Cabarete to eat out or have a drink. There are tonnes of people just like me that would have loved to go to Sosua, but go to Punta Cana instead. You might have heard of Punta Cana -- it's that tourist destination where all the families go. You know, where they make tonnes and tonnes of money every year from those people who are looking for the family vacation we can no longer offer.