The Redondo Beach City Council on Tuesday night unanimously approved an emergency moratorium on massage parlors intended to bolster a police crackdown on illegally operating businesses, particularly those illicitly offering prostitution services.
The 45-day moratorium prevents the opening of any new massage or bodywork business or the expansion of any of the 25 massage parlors currently operating in the city.
“This is something we do need to do,” said Mayor Mike Gin, who said that legitimately operating businesses have implored him to address the illegal activities occurring in some parlors. “The illegal activities have really created a bad perception for all legitimate operators that are out there. I think this is something we need to get our arms around.”
Councilman Steve Aspel called the prostitution problem “the city’s dirty little secret” and said that illegally operating parlors needed to be weeded out.
“They are a blight on the city,” he said.
According to Redondo Beach Police Chief Joe Leonardi, several factors have contributed to a growing proliferation of illegally operating massage parlors. The state last year passed legislation creating a state certification process for massage practitioners, the unintended consequence of which was that cities now have less control over licensing. Practitioners no longer need to register through the city.
The state, however, does little in the way of enforcement. City records indicate 109 licensed practitioners work in the city, 65 with city-issued permits and 47 with state certification. Recent police sweeps found several unlicensed practitioners. A police operation during the first two weeks of November found six practitioners operating without permits. In October, five women were arrested in massage parlors and charged with prostitution. This year, four massage parlors have lost their business licenses – still controlled by the city – for conducting lewd activity. Four more such cases are pending. Since 2006, 17 women have been arrested at local massage parlors on suspicion of prostitution.
But Leonardi said the sting operations are seeing diminishing returns as the parlors have become increasingly wary. In the course of a decoy operation on Monday, three practitioners immediately returned money after they were solicited for sex.
“Our effectiveness is decreasing….We think enforcement alone is not the way to do it,” Leonardi said.
City Attorney Mike Webb said that the moratorium would allow the city to devise new strategies for tackling the problem as well as find ways to more efficiently and effectively revoke licenses of those businesses engaged in illicit activities.
Leonardi said that the issue is a public safety concern not only due to prostitution but also in the potential danger massage clients face when being worked on by untrained, unlicensed practitioners.
“If someone is in need of a legitimate massage, and they begin to do certain types of procedures on your back that actually hurt, it’s a threat to public safety,” Leonardi said.
After the council meeting, one of the officers who’d served as a decoy revealed that he’d actually been injured Monday when a practitioner pressed his back so hard she broke one of his ribs. The officer also said that parlors that formerly were aggressive in offering sexual services – grabbing an undercover officer by his genitals and leading him to the table within 30 seconds of his arrival – are now behaving much more carefully.
Pastor Chris Cannon of King’s Harbor Church said that the illicit parlors are deeply impacting many people in often untold ways throughout the city, damaging families and marriages and the lives of all those involved.
“As a pastor and someone who deals with the wreckage that is caused by this, it is severe, both to the men…and the women that are caught up in this,” Cannon said.
Cannon held up a newspaper advertisement for one of the parlors that promised “gorgeous young girls with good techniques.” He said the city needed to be at the forefront of a movement to address the problem.
“I am not sure who is looking for a gorgeous young girl with good technique for a massage,” Cannon said. “And I think we have a responsibility, and a privilege, to become a model city for the United States.” ER
