That is, unless the local police force were a disciplined, clean, well-staffed and efficient organization.

Sadly, this is not one of the areas that the city can point to with civic pride. As much as Prague's become a bankable global hit in tourism, the public sector is clearly lagging far behind the private one.

Tourism levels, measured in advanced bookings, rose 42 percent from 2003 to 2004, the last year for which stats are available, you'd expect the city's captains of commerce to be toasting their success (and projected revenues) with a well-aged brandy in the back room of a smart Wenceslas Square hotel.

Instead, they're probably conferring nervously somewhere in Vinohrady, where it's safer.

Prague still has an enviably low level of violent crime — far lower than that of Paris, Rome or Berlin, even taking into account the greater sizes of those capitals. But the more visible categories of petty crime — pickpocketing, theft, vandalism, drug use, vice — are more apparent on the city's main boulevard than ever before. And the police on the street seem unwilling and unable to make much difference in combating it.

Local drug dealers operate openly, scoffing at police who patrol just yards away. Prostitutes also conduct business in a highly public fashion, and though their trade remains legal in the Czech Republic, organized bordellos and profiting from prostitutes is not — and that's happening just as openly.

As local merchants and hoteliers know, police in the city center are usually more interested in stopping drivers and harassing pedestrians who are most often minorities or wealthy-looking foreigners in order to issue fines. Incredibly, most of these are paid in cash, often with no receipts issued, and the amounts seem remarkably flexible depending on the thickness of your wallet.

Vladislav Husák, the newly appointed president of the Police Presidium, the central national police organization, has pledged to clean up this system, eliminating cash fines and setting fixed penalties for misdemeanors. He'd like to end the all-too-common melodrama of police threatening jaywalkers with 5,000 Kč ($201.20) fines ... and then magnanimously settling for 250 Kč for anyone making a pathetic enough plea of poverty. (Hint for pretty girls: You can often get off with a warning if you offer these upholders of public order a fake phone number).

Husák is to be applauded for his commitment to making Prague a clean, well-policed city. So is Mayor Pavel Bém for his pledges to clean up Wenceslas Square and rid it of drug dealers, thieves and sex-club hustlers.

It bears noting, however, that similar promises have been made before — in fact, so often, and with so little followthrough, that many business owners on the square are already openly skeptical of the mayor's promises.

The words of one hotelier, on the subject of increased police on the square, leave little room for doubt:

"I am absolutely sure that they are not professional. They don't know how to handle themselves."

Do others in the hospitality business feel the same way?

"We have a monthly meeting. I can make our hotel clean, but we can't clean the streets. It's a pity for us, it's a pity for our customers, and it's a pity for Prague."