BEWARE POKE PERVS
Cute ’toons pop up near homes of sex offenders, pols warn
TWO LAWMAKERS fear the wildly popular game Pokémon Go is leading players to some real-life monsters.
The app sends players on a scavenger hunt around the city to catch digital Pokémon creatures — but some pop up right in front of the homes of convicted sex offenders, according to a report released Friday.
State Sens. Diane Savino (D-S.I.) and Jeff Klein (D-Bronx) want to pass legislation that would keep young children and other players at least 100 feet away from a convicted sex offender’s home.
Over a two-week period, the lawmakers sent staffers to more than 100 homes of level-2 and level-3 sex offenders who committed crimes against children or were convicted of possessing child pornography. The cutesy characters randomly generated by the Pokémon app appeared an astounding 57% of the time, the report said.
Add in other Pokémon-related items — like PokéStops and Pokémon gyms — and that figure rose to 73%, the lawmakers said in “Protecting our Children: How Pokémon Go and Augmented Reality Games Expose Children to Sex Offenders.”
There’s also the possibility that predators can use Pokémon lures to entice unsuspecting players — as many businesses already do to bring in shoppers. In exchange for $10, a user can buy a rare Pokémon character such as Charizard or Ditto, and urge players to visit their store — or home — to try and catch it.
On Huntington Ave. in the Bronx Friday, outside the house of a sex offender convicted in 1996 of molesting a 13-year-old girl, a Daily News reporter caught a blue Pokémon Zubat.
There were other convicted sex offenders registered just blocks away, according to the state’s database.
“It seems like it lures kids,” said Robert Melendez, 61, a selfemployed musician who has lived on Huntington Ave. for the last 11 years.
Savino (inset r.) said there was no evidence to suggest that predators had used the app to entice children to unsafe places — yet. “We love new technology . . . but we believe that the makers of this
game and others to come have a responsibility to help us protect children and all society from those who would prey upon us,” the Staten Islander said.
She and Klein want to pass a bill that would prevent the app from placing Pokémon or PokéStops within 100 feet of an offender’s home.
“We figured that this was . . . going to force sexual predators to play this game,” said Klein (inset l.). “They’re always looking for ways to have contact with young people.”
Lynn Myerson, who lives two doors away from a convicted sex offender on the Upper East Side, said the game’s creators have to make some design changes. “I do think that they have a responsibility to ensure that there’s no conflicts,” she said.
Game creators Nintendo and Niantic did not return a request for comment.