A weekend prostitution bust in Mount Auburn and Walnut Hills ended with six men accused of soliciting and other arrests on weapons and drug charges.

        Cincinnati Police District 4's Violent Crimes Squad cracked down in response to community complaints about prostitution, said Capt. David Ratliff.

        Prostitution became a hot topic at City Hall last month after a Mount Adams resident videotaped hookers and customers on his street.

        Female officers pretended to be prostitutes in the Saturday night bust, focused mostly on the 2800 block of Gilbert Avenue in Walnut Hills and the 200 block of East Liberty Street in Mount Auburn.

        Five men were arrested on charges of soliciting in Mount Auburn, and one in Walnut Hills. Another three were arrestedon drug charges, two of them also on weapons charges.

        One man was arrested after offering to trade an undercover officer marijuana for sex, police said. They said another offered cocaine in exchange for sex. Officers said they discovered crack and powder cocaine in the man's possession and an 11-inch knife concealed in a nightstick.

        Police said they stopped a third man who was driving with his stereo too loud and found he had a 9mm handgun, crack and marijuana.

        The city's law department is researching an idea by Councilmen David Crowley and David Pepper for an anti-prostitution program that would include ordering those convicted of soliciting to stay out of neighborhoods where they were caught.

        Mr. Crowley also asked police to focus more on the problem, citing the decline in arrests, according to their statistics — 237 arrests between January and May of this year, compared with 800 for all of 2001.

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