  We study the locality properties of the vortex operators in compact U(1)
Maxwell-Chern-Simons and SU(N) Yang-Mills-Chern-Simons theories in 2+1
dimensions. We find that these theories do admit local vortex operators and
thus in the UV regularized versions should contain stable magnetic vortices. In
the continuum limit however the energy of these vortex excitations generically
is logarithmically UV divergent. Nevertheless the classical analysis shows that
at small values of CS coefficient $\kappa$ the vortices become light. It is
conceivable that they in fact become massless and condense due to quantum
effects below some small $\kappa$. If this happens the magnetic symmetry breaks
spontaneously and the theory is confining.
