Police ask for massage parlor crackdown

Authorities in Costa Mesa are asking the City Council to extend a 45-day ban on new massage parlors that went into effect in July by 10 months and 15 days, rounding it out at one year.

An ever-increasing concentration of massage parlors in Costa Mesa and an influx in applications for new permits has made it too difficult for the city’s police department to guard against parlors that serve as fronts for prostitution, according to police.

In addition, a law (Senate Bill 731) will take effect in September giving the state control over licensing massage practitioners, and the city will need to amend its own practices to comply with the new state regulations.

The city counts 54 massage establishments within its city limits, many more per capita than neighboring cities. As other cities continue to enforce tight regulations — massage parlors are limited to 10 in Huntington Beach, and Santa Ana has had a moratorium on new parlors for a year and a half — the number of applications Costa Mesa receives has been constantly on the rise. In 2006, the city got 239 massage-related applications. It jumped to 262 in 2007 and 305 in 2008.

Internet advertisements for some of the parlors around town offer thinly veiled sexual services accompanied by pictures of scantily clad women.

“Without adoption of this ordinance, properties in the city of Costa Mesa could receive entitlements on massage establishments [and] expand existing establishments and unqualified persons could obtain permits to operate as massage practitioners,” a city report warns.

During the yearlong moratorium, city officials intend to explore a variety of options in an effort to prevent a glut of massage parlors, especially illicit ones, from coming into the city.

Officials are looking at limiting the number of parlors that could operate in a certain area, limiting the number of masseuses per parlor, restricting the hours of operation in some areas and several other measures.

The state bill creates a body, the Massage Therapy Organization, for license masseuses and makes it difficult or impossible for cities and counties to place stricter restrictions on massage parlors than the state deems fit. The idea of the bill is to eliminate the vagaries and discrepancies put on massage therapists by different local agencies and create one set of state standards.