The growth of Chinatown prompted a moral panic among moral reformers and xenophobes who warned of the "lure of the Chinaman" and accused Chinese businesses of being dens of iniquity linked with opium and "white slavery" and of being a danger to the community and, in particular, to white women. As a result, in 1908 the city threatened to deny licenses to Chinese restaurants that employed white women and in 1914 the provincial government introduced legislation barring white women from working in Chinese restaurants. The legislation was not well enforced and by 1923 there were 121 white women recorded as being in the employ of 121 Chinese restaurants in Toronto.
