An entertainment district that lasted for 70 years disappeared after just one warning letter.
On November 21, 2021, about 36 shops that had been operating in Kannami Shinchi, the “Chon-no-ma Street” in Hyogo Prefecture, all closed abruptly. The union representative received a warning letter from the police, demanding that they stop illegal operations. It pointed out that the Kannami Shinchi shops are not restaurants, but in fact offered sexual services by female employees.
The Kannami Shinchi shops were built as a restaurant with only a counter on the first floor, and a woman in revealing clothes sat in the shop doorway during business hours from the evening until midnight. It was known along with Tobita Shinchi in Osaka, and its predecessor, “Park Street”, which was established in the 1950’s as an illegal entertainment distict, “Aosen”, and had a history of about 70 years as a “Chon-no-ma” area.
However, three years ago, Kannami Shinchi shops never operated again. All shops were closed down and the land was acquired by the city to prevent the reopening of illegal businesses.
As of November 2023, the acquisition of 31 properties had been completed and partial demolition work started January 2024. The plan is to turn the site into a plaza or renovate the buildings and turn them into pop-up shops.
In the past, all shops on the “Akasen (legal entertainment district)” and “Aosen” were chon-no-ma style which means the service is offered in a short time (Chotto no ma), but with the enforcement of the Anti-Prostitution Law in 1956, they all became illegal and chon-no-ma shops ostensibly disappeared.
Typical entertainment district that remain today are the “five major Shinchi”, such as Tobita Shinchi in Osaka. Koganecho in Yokohama, Horinouchi in Kawasaki, Watakanojima in Mie and Maebaru in Okinawa were also famous in the past, but have disappeared due to exposures. Other chon-no-ma existed in other parts of the country, but their number is decreasing year by year.
