After many years it's indeed gratifying to see action being taken to discourage and hopefully stamp out this sex tourism that does very little for the local enonomy except discourage legitimate tourism ie: families, attracts crime and all the unsavory aspects that go with it (drugs, seedy bars, trashy people). These pathetic degenerates who are seemingly unable to obtain female companionship without exploiting poor, ignorant girls from the campo are clearly a blight on the landscape and should slither back into whatever hole the crawled into. Many of us who continue to reside here well remember the prosperous, safe, fun days before this plague of low life's descended upon us.
When many on the board talk about the good old days, they are talking about the past year or two.
For me, like you, SosuaCitizen2, the good days were well before that. And like you I hope we get some of that back.
I am amused when I read many of the posts because it seems like the complainers see only two options: wide open with only bars and prostitutes to bring income to the town, or a bunch of old fogies tottering around. In other words, the extremes.
I think Sosua can be a balanced tourist town, with something for almost everyone. Prostitutes have a place in my vision of Sosua, but they should be in a area where those who want them can find them, not propositioning clients on the main street during the day and early evening hours.
Those who want only bars and whores are mostly tourist-types, even if they come here frequently. They ignore people like us, Ciitizen2, who live here and contribute much more to Sosua than they do. We spend a lot of money here to buy or rent a place to live, to pay operating and maintenance expenses, our frequent trips to the supermarkets and farmacias. the wages we pay to those we hire to work full or part-time for us, and taxes. This is our, town, too, even more so than the occasional visitors who come for the night life.
Most of us who make our home here don't like what has happened to Sosua in recent years. Hopefully, we are starting to see the return of Sosua to being a balanced tourist town.