By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2026-10-18 23:56:12 | Updated at 2026-10-19 00:56:15
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Enough is enough!
A Queens community group demanded Sunday that a sleazy brothel at the notorious “Market of Sweethearts” be shut down once and for all — after it popped back up just hours after an NYPD raid.
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.
“We’re demanding that they shut it down permanently,” city district leader Hiram Monseratte said outside the former pediatric dentist office that now peddles sex. “We’re upset that our criminal justice system is failing New Yorkers. We refuse to allow mockery of a criminal system to be made.”
Chanting “shut it down” and “taking our streets back,” protesters said police raided the building Saturday, but the illegal operators were up and running again just hours later — a symbol of the out-of-control strip of lawlessness that has remained in business despite repeated raids and protests.
“This is an embarrassment,” said district leader Rosa Sanchez. “This is our community.”
The neighborhood along Roosevelt Avenue and neighboring streets has for years traumatized locals with open-air prostitution, drug trafficking and shoplifting — all of which sprouted up after illegal immigrants from the US border with Mexico flooded into the five boroughs.
Earlier this month, GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, held a press conference on Roosevelt Avenue and blamed soft-on-crime state statutes for the mess.
The NYPD has carried out raid after raid in recent years, and Gov. Kathy Hochul even deployed state troopers to the area for 90 days in 2024 to try to snuff out the illegal activity.
Last year, the city launched Operation Restore Roosevelt, a coordinated multi-agency effort to clean up the strip — and it worked briefly, cutting crime in the area by 28%, officials said.
But once they left, the illicit trade resumed — as was the case after the weekend police raid.
Now, community leaders maintain they’re fed up, and said Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani haven’t done enough to clean up their neighborhood after years of complaints.
“The community wants to walk peacefully down Roosevelt Avenue,” said sociologist Mercedes Blanco, a longtime neighborhood resident. “But they can’t because the night workers have taken ownership of our streets.”
