Enough is enough!<\/p>\n
A Queens community group demanded Sunday that a sleazy brothel at the notorious \u201cMarket of Sweethearts<\/a>\u201d be shut down once and for all \u2014 after it popped back up just hours after an NYPD raid. <\/p>\n The Restore Roosevelt Avenue Coalition rallied outside the 75th Street sex shop in Jackson Heights calling for the city to permanently shutter it, while slamming city and state officials for allowing the illegal migrant mess to thrive along the bustling strip for years.<\/p>\n A coalition of residents from Jackson Heights, known as Restore Roosevelt Avenue, gathers to protest and demand the closure of a brothel at 37-45 75th Street in the Jackson Heights neighborhood in Queens. Gregory P. Mango for NY Post<\/p>\n Women believed to be sex workers stand in front of storefronts on Roosevelt Avenue between 89th Street and 91st Street in the Corona section of Queens overnight on Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. For the New York Post<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re demanding that they shut it down permanently,\u201d city district leader Hiram Monseratte said outside the former pediatric dentist office that now peddles sex. \u201cWe\u2019re upset that our criminal justice system is failing New Yorkers. We refuse to allow mockery of a criminal system to be made.\u201d<\/p>\n Chanting \u201cshut it down\u201d and \u201ctaking our streets back,\u201d protesters said police raided the building Saturday, but the illegal operators were up and running again just hours later \u2014 a symbol of the out-of-control strip of lawlessness that has remained in business despite repeated raids and protests.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is an embarrassment,\u201d said district leader Rosa Sanchez. \u201cThis is our community.\u201d<\/p>\n A coalition of residents from Jackson Heights, named Restore Roosevelt Avenue, gathers on the steps leading down to a brothel to protest and demand its closure at 37-45 75th Street in Jackson Heights. Gregory P. Mango for NY Post<\/p>\n The neighborhood along Roosevelt Avenue and neighboring streets has for years traumatized locals with open-air prostitution, drug trafficking and shoplifting \u2014 all of which sprouted up after illegal immigrants from the US border with Mexico flooded into the five boroughs.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, held a press conference on Roosevelt Avenue<\/a> and blamed soft-on-crime state statutes for the mess. <\/p>\n The NYPD has carried out raid<\/a> after raid in recent years, and Gov. Kathy Hochul even deployed state troopers to the area for 90 days in 2024<\/a> to try to snuff out the illegal activity.<\/p>\n