Prostitutes Adapt to Loitering Ban by Switching Locations : Crime: Program barring convicted hookers from some streets draws praise from business owners there, but concern from neighborhoods to which problem has shifted.

Like any good businesswoman, Machelle adapts.

A hooker by trade, she has switched locations and working hours--one of scores of prostitutes who have changed the way they sell sex after a city crackdown that began nearly 18 months ago.

Convicted prostitutes are now banned, for example, from some sections of Sunset and Sepulveda boulevards--traditional working areas in Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley. Under the city’s so-called mapping program, they face arrest for simply standing on the sidewalk or talking to motorists on selected streets throughout Los Angeles.

Business owners weary of the illicit trade in those neighborhoods say the law has sharply reduced the number of hookers they see.

But reflecting the intractability of the world’s oldest profession, Machelle and many of her colleagues have simply moved to other neighborhoods.

Machelle now works the corner of Winnetka Avenue and Roscoe Boulevard, a West Valley site not covered by the mapping program.

As an added precaution, she works days--in the Valley, the restrictions are in effect from 5 p.m. to 6 a.m.

“I make three times as much at night,” the 20-year-old said. But she still earns $200 to $250 a day from a steady flow of clients who apparently have also adapted to the mapping program.

Los Angeles police vice officers in the Valley are working to close some of the loopholes in the program, seeking to extend the restrictions to 24 hours a day--now the practice in Hollywood.

And on the horizon is a controversial state bill that would allow police to arrest anyone loitering on any public property with the intent to sell sex. The legislation is far broader than the mapping program, which applies only to convicted prostitutes and selected streets.

Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar), the bill’s author, admits his far-reaching legislation cannot eliminate prostitution. And police note that the criminal justice system is now so overcrowded that misdemeanor violators, including prostitutes, seldom serve full sentences. Even so, said Katz, the legislation will “give cops and neighborhood groups the ability to fight back.”

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Passage of the legislation--which awaits Gov. Pete Wilson’s signature--is also partly the result of the persistence of community groups in Hollywood and the Valley, which have long complained about the traffic, crime and other troubles that accompany prostitution.

“I’m not the most attractive woman in the world,” said Beverly Lange, who until last month lived in an apartment on Sepulveda. “I’m overweight, I’m older. Yet cars will pull over to the curb and proposition me. . . . That’s why this anti-loitering bill is important to me.”

The difficulty in arresting prostitutes in the past has been the legal requirement that they explicitly agree to provide sex for money--such as when approached by undercover police officers--or be caught in the act. Veteran prostitutes have learned to avoid those circumstances.

The Los Angeles city attorney’s office introduced the mapping program in Hollywood in spring, 1993, for the first time allowing police to arrest convicted prostitutes for appearing to solicit customers.

About a year later, the program was introduced in the Valley. And so far, residents and business owners say the crackdown has reduced streetwalking on portions of Sherman Way and Sepulveda, Reseda and Lankershim boulevards that for years had attracted prostitutes and their customers.

“It has cut the traffic down to one-tenth of what it was before,” said Lange, whose apartment overlooks Sepulveda.

So far in the Valley, more than 400 prostitutes have been put on restriction under the mapping program. At least 50 of them have been rearrested for violating its conditions, which also prohibit accepting rides and sitting in parked cars with motorists.

“We still make arrests,” said LAPD Sgt. Carl Frank, who heads the vice squad at the North Hollywood Division. “But I defy anyone to find the blatant type of prostitution that was prevalent up to two years ago.”

But the problem is far from solved. To avoid arrest, for example, some hookers have abandoned profitable business strips in favor of nearby residential neighborhood.

Vecky Milliken and her family are among those suffering the consequences.

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For two months, the Millikens have been awakened by the late-night shouts--and screams--of a half a dozen or so hookers who have started working in their Winnetka neighborhood, located just outside the mapping program boundaries.

“At 2 or 3 in the morning they’ll be fighting with their pimps over the money,” said Milliken.

Last month, she said, a neighbor and his two daughters moved to Simi Valley to escape the vice and violence. She said she too plans to flee. “It’s upsetting because I have two small children,” she said.

And though the mapping program has made it easier to arrest prostitutes, the county’s jail system is too crowded to house them.

As a result, those arrested for violating the mapping law are often back on the street after serving only a fraction of their sentence. Instead of spending 180 days in jail, for example, some prostitutes are released after 15 days, police say.

“It does get frustrating,” said Officer Dave DiMeglio, who works the vice unit at the West Valley Division. “Mapping helps, but I don’t think it’s the solution.”

On a recent morning, DiMeglio’s team nabbed Machelle as she stepped out of a van stopped at Roscoe Boulevard and Winnetka Avenue--her third arrest since receiving her mapping restrictions.

By the time she was released four hours later, Machelle had already cooked up a new plan.

“I’m going to go make some money,” she said with a grin. “I’m going to go up to Parthenia [Street]; the cops don’t know me there yet.”

Eight days later, she was arrested in the West Valley.

Other prostitutes have not bothered to alter their work habits, choosing instead to work in defiance of the mapping program.

Meanwhile, local vice officers have begun collecting evidence needed to extend mapping restrictions to 24 hours a day and to add more streets. A local judge must approve the changes.