By GREG JORDAN
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
BLUEFIELD, W.Va. — Prostitutes walking up and down local streets all day and well into the night have been a problem in Bluefield and other Mercer County communities for years, but one resident has posted signs asking them to conduct their business somewhere else.
Jeffery Blankenship. 29, said he made the signs and put them up three weeks ago. They warn passing prostitutes and their clientele that their activities are under video surveillance. Blankenship has set up 360 degrees of video surveillance around his Bluefield Avenue home. One prostitution customer or “john” told him that his efforts were futile.
(Staff photo by Eric DiNovo)
“Yes, I spoke briefly with him because I was trying to avoid having a conversation with him. I said it was inappropriate for these women to be walking up and down consecutively all day and presenting themselves in an unprofessional manner to the public,” Blankenship said. “I’m sure (police) are doing something but from what he said, there’s nothing they can do.”
Some prostitutes repeatedly walk along the avenue despite surveillance cameras. Blankenship said he has asked them as nicely as possible not to come around his home, but some keep walking the avenue there.
“I have seen this one woman in particular, a blond, who has walked up and down here from dusk to dawn pretty much. She has put miles in front of my driveway here. No matter what I do and tell her not to come back, she’s repeatedly come back,” Blankenship stated.
“I put the signs up about three weeks ago. No one’s took them, probably because of the camera system because they know they’re going to be on camera if they do. I just advise them all I’m taking their pictures and I’ve seen various vehicles pick these girls up, drop them off and even confronted a few of the girls in front of my house getting picked up and dropped off because I told them ‘Look, it’s bad enough you walk in front of my house, you’re presenting this in front of me.’ I’m in the wrong part of the neighborhood. I didn’t know when I moved here, but I’m here for the short term.”
Blankenship plans to move from Bluefield next year, but he intends to leave the signs up until then. Some prostitutes and their clients have been deterred by the surveillance warnings, but others are not discouraged. The law can make it “too hard to bust them,” he added. Fines for repeat offenders need to be greater, too.
“Most of them don’t care because they’re getting by with it, and like I said prostitution isn’t something that’s easily busted,” he said. “You’ve got to have people on tape, recordings, money transfers. I understand where the police are coming from, too, but I think if a presence was put out here more, there’s other laws than prostitution such as vagrancy, loitering, that could be enforced on these women to help them get out of this neighborhood.”
Blankenship added that he once lived on Thorn Street in Princeton and had to contend with prostitution there, too. He said like in Bluefield, he asked them nicely not to come around his home.
“The problem was not as bad as it is here, but it was still bad,” he recalled. “Most of those prostitutes, I told them not to come around and I didn’t see them as much, but over here it’s a different ball game. I’m not too worried about it. I try to just mind my own business; but you know, you can only do so much.”
If more people in the community were proactive, they could help discourage the practice of prostitution, he said.
At his computer, Blankenship called up some of the surveillance images of prostitutes and clients’ vehicles he posted on Facebook; within two days he had about 80 followers. He pointed out one elderly prostitute he sees frequently, and a blond prostitute who appeared in both day and night images.
“I guarantee you if you stand outside for 10 minutes, you’ll see her,” he said. “I’d put money on it.”
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