district, the inner-city neighborhood where he grew up and his family
made its real estate fortune.
But Roppongi often breaks his heart, over the
decades turning from a U.S. servicemen’s haunt into a respectable
business district and then back to disrepute — the gentle women in
kimonos giving way to mobsters and drug dealers.
Good or bad, in this famously safe city, Roppongi
stands out: elegant one block, seedy the next, a multicultural meeting
spot known as
Through it all, Shimbo has fiercely gone to battle
over Roppongi’s reputation. Now the 58-year-old merchants’ association
leader is facing a new challenge: bar touts.
Popping up sometimes five or six to a block, the mostly young men from
and other African nations have a particularly un-Japanese way of doing
business. In a country protective of its personal space, the hawkers
sidle up to male foreigners, taking them in by the arm to suggest the
charms of the scantily clad women waiting inside nearby hostess clubs.
Many take the bait of cheap drinks and casual sex —
and wind up with a headache the next morning. Patrons have had their
drinks spiked, then woozily regained consciousness hours later with no
memory of the previous evening or knowledge of the thousands of dollars
charged to their credit cards.
In an unprecedented move, the
last year warned the 40,000 American citizens here to avoid Roppongi
and its nearly 350 bars and clubs. Without citing numbers, officials
pointed to a “significant increase” in drink-spiking incidents.
“
receive reliable reports of U.S. citizens being drugged in
Roppongi-area bars,” the warning read. “Assaults on Americans have also
been reported in connection with drink-spiking.”
The July bulletin, which followed warnings by the
British and Australian embassies, sent Shimbo into action. Within days,
members of the Roppongi Commerce Shop Owners Assn. met with U.S.
officials and pledged steps to correct the problem.
“I wish I could have told them there isn’t such a
practice in Roppongi,” said Shimbo, the group’s vice chairman. “But in
reality, these things do go on here.”
Roppongi’s name translates into “six trees,” from
the samurai families who lived here during feudal times. After World
War II, the area was a popular haunt for U.S. servicemen, and visiting
military men still sometimes abound here.
When the economy was good, foreign-born stockbrokers
and stock traders wandered out of their offices in the upscale Roppongi
towers to spend their money here, attracting a parade of young, single
Japanese women.
But Roppongi can also show a reckless, bad-boy side.
In 2004, four foreign businessmen died after snorting cocaine police
said Roppongi dealers had mixed with heroin.
The area has also been the turf of Japanese yakuza.
For years, the Inagawa-kai, a major crime syndicate, has been based in
Roppongi. In 2007, there was a mob hit in broad daylight nearby.
For years, Roppongi has also attracted countless
foreign women lured by the prospect of making big money talking to
customers in the area’s numerous gentlemen clubs.
“The irony of Roppongi is that the rest of
The bar touts began appearing a decade ago. Slowly, their tactics have gotten more brazen, merchants say.
Shimbo’s group began a night patrol five years ago
to pick up street trash and erase graffiti, but now the dozens of
volunteers spend much of their time observing the touts, reporting
violations such as aggressive solicitation.
Merchants have posted signs warning against
harassment of passers-by and last year police made 28 arrests — double
the number from the year before. But the touts won’t go away.
A tout who identified himself as Smithy, a Nigerian
wearing a Scottish cap, denied that he harasses anyone. “I do not pull
people into bars,” he said. “They go in on their own free will.”
Some visitors say that
police, in trying to bring order to the area, have harassed foreign bar
patrons, searching them for drugs without proper cause, demanding urine
samples.
“Nowadays, everyone is a mark in Roppongi,” said
human rights activist Debito Arudou, who has written about police
practices on his blog. “I don’t like being made a mark of.”
In an interview, a 31-year-old American said his drink was spiked in a Roppongi bar last year. He later learned of more than
After going to a bar with two friends, the man’s
group was approached by two women. The men bought a round of drinks.
The victim said he woke up the next morning, in his own bed, with blood
on his shirt, the evening wiped from his memory.
The man, who said he did not want to give his name out of embarrassment, believes that
“I always avoided the area with the aggressive touts
— we called it the gauntlet,” said the man, who declined to give his
name. “I never thought this would happen to me.”
Shimbo wants to guard against such troubles. So he and his volunteers say they will continue their nighttime patrols.
“I love this neighborhood,” he said. “I’m not giving up.”
—
(c) 2010, Los Angeles Times.
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