If Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti gets his way, ferries full of sex-seekers will steam across the harbour to a Toronto Islands red light district.

Mammoliti has for years said Toronto should regulate and tax brothels, and made the establishment of a distinct prostitution zone a central plank in his aborted run for mayor last year.

Now part of Mayor Rob Ford’s inner circle, Mammoliti (Ward 7, York West) is renewing the push, along with the leafy islands as his top choice for location.

“It’s the political issue that nobody wants to touch,” Mammoliti, chair of the community development and recreation committee, said Tuesday after making his case in a radio interview.

Mammoliti has for years argued Toronto should regulate and tax brothels, saying unregulated prostitution happens in “massage parlours” in residential communities across the city.

The time is ripe, after an Ontario Superior Court ruling struck down prostitution laws — a ruling suspended pending appeal — and with the city facing a $784 million budget gap for 2012, he says.

The sex zone, and hotels and other businesses it would draw, could put “hundreds of millions of dollars” in “sin taxes” into city coffers, he predicted. Get provincial permission for a casino on the islands and “we would have solved all of our problems at city hall without cutting and going crazy.”

“To put it in an area away from the city might make some sense, and the islands fit the bill,” Mammoliti added. “The industry exists and we’re not making a penny from it . . . I haven’t raised it with the mayor and his people yet, but I will.”

Asked if a red-light district would take away from the island’s wholesome family vibe, he responded: “I’m not sure how wholesome it is with the whole nude beach,” referring to clothing-optional Hanlan’s Point Beach. “If you look hard enough, you’ll find somebody without pants on.”

Parents meeting their children at the Toronto Islands ferry terminal on Thursday begged to differ.

“I’d say it’d be a strange mix with the public school over there,” said Shannon Kang, who lives on the waterfront and was picking up her daughter. “So the prostitutes can take the ferry over with the kids?”

“That seems like a strange location — I can’t imagine that any of the residents would want it either,” laughed Bruce Sullivan, who was picking up his son and a friend’s daughter at the ferry terminal. (“That’s where we go to school!” added the round cheeked girl, with brown hair and a purple jacket.)

But Maggie Taut, a waterfront resident reading a magazine on a park bench next to the lake, agreed with Mammoliti’s proposal.

“Why not? There are nude beaches over there,” she said, noting that European cities like Paris and Amsterdam have embraced red-light districts. “It’s better on the island than in the middle of Toronto.”

Marci Crist, who owns a bed and breakfast on the islands, predicted the proposal wouldn’t float with most islanders.

“There’s virtually no crime on the island and, with the kind of crowd that (red light district) would bring, that might not be possible,” said Crist, adding she’s in favour of legalizing and regulating prostitution.

“There’s also the police situation — if a woman got in trouble with a violent man, it would take forever to get somebody out here.”

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She took exception to Mammoliti’s comparison with the nude beach, noting many families go there. “It hasn’t got anything to do with selling sex professionally.”

With files from Dan Robson