NEW YORK (AP) – Gay New Yorkers staged a protest in front of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s home Saturday, asking him to stop police from what they say are arrests on false prostitution charges.

“This is a strange, weird kind of thing, where an undercover police officer is offering to pay money to an individual,” said Bill Dobbs, a gay activist. “And all of a sudden, there’s an arrest – whether or not the individual accepts the money.”

He said police have targeted Manhattan shops that sell erotic materials, approaching male customers and offering them sex and money. The men are then arrested on prostitution charges.

Protesters said there has been a pattern of such arrests – more than 50 in the past three years – and the mayor should stop them.

Paul Browne, deputy commissioner for public information with the New York Police Department, said Dobbs was misinformed.

“The police activity was in response to community complaints of prostitution and other problems at a few locations,” and was in no way aimed at the gay community, he said.

Browne said ranking members of the department have met with community representatives and those concerned about some specific arrests and to discuss the NYPD’s approach to prostitution complaints and other quality-of-life issues. He described the talks as positive and said they will continue.

Dobbs helped organize the demonstration near Bloomberg’s home on East 79th Street, just off Fifth Avenue.

“The city is using gay men as a means to shutter places,” said Dobbs, who is an attorney. “This is a blow to civil liberties, it’s a dangerous kind of sting.”

Protesters said they’re especially concerned by the way the men had been arrested – outside shops, with owners often not aware anything had happened until their businesses were shuttered. Many of the arrests took place at shops in Chelsea – a Manhattan neighborhood with a high gay population, protesters said.

According to the NYPD, there were 900 nuisance abatement closings or stipulations in 2008 in the five boroughs, 242 of them in Manhattan, and of those, 100 involved prostitution. Of that total, three were gay, X-rated DVD stores at which prostitution occurred, according to complaints. Citywide there were 1,883 prostitution arrests; 1,650 were female, 233 were male.