Since embarking on a quest in 2013 to shutdown sex parlors posing as massage business, San Rafael officials have driven 11 suspected illicit businesses out of the city.

When the city began actually enforcing the massage ordinance it adopted in 2010, city officials estimated there were about 30 illicit sexual massage businesses in San Rafael. Now two years later a search on websites such as rubmaps.com and craigslist.com reveals about 20 such massage establishments are still actively reviewed by customers.

Raffi Boloyan, city planning manager, said seven of these massage businesses have closed just within the past seven months. Another suspected illicit massage business is expected to close May 31.

“What we’ve tried to do is just by our normal pressure and inspections to get people to voluntarily leave,” Boloyan said. “Some of these businesses are looking elsewhere and a lot of landlords are realizing they should find some alternate tenants.”

San Rafael officials have been monitoring massage businesses by making sure all massage therapists are licensed by the California Massage Therapy Council and registered with the city. Inspectors can enter any massage establishment during business hours to confirm employees are wearing proper clothing, have identification badges and don’t have items such as beds or alcohol on the premises. Inspectors from San Mateo-based CSG Consultants are in charge of enforcing the ordinance as the city itself doesn’t have enough employees to take on the task, Boloyan said. The city entered into a one-year, $100,000 contract with the company in 2013, and in June 2014 the City Council voted to enter into another one-year, $250,000 contract with the firm.

Boloyan said there’s typically about three people who conduct enforcement activities and file all the paperwork associated with permits, citations and fines. But that doesn’t mean illicit massage operators should get too comfortable in recognizing those contracted employees.

“We bring in some fresh faces from the company on occasion just to get in the door,” Boloyan said.

Mayor Gary Phillips, who spearheaded the crackdown on illicit massage parlors, said he’s pleased with the results of the enforcement program thus far.

“It’s a never-ending battle, but it’s one we need to continue,” Phillips said.

Moratorium continues

In an additional effort to drive such businesses out of town, the City Council updated its massage ordinance and in January unanimously adopted a 45-day urgency moratorium that restricts any new massage businesses from opening in the city. The council chose in February on a 4-1 vote, with Councilwoman Kate Colin dissenting, to extend the moratorium through Dec. 31.

While the moratorium doesn’t apply to existing businesses in the city and still allows sole practitioners to move without consequence, many legitimate massage therapists are frustrated and upset by the moratorium.

Massage therapists say the moratorium hurts their profession because it lumps them in with problem establishments and hinders the growing acceptance by medical professionals and insurance companies of massage as a healing art. In addition, the adoption by the council in February of a new fee structure that requires massage therapists pay more to have their permits processed hasn’t sat well with many in the massage community, including the newly reformed Massage Ordinance Advisory Committee.

Fritzi Schnel, a massage therapist who has worked in San Rafael for 26 years, said it’s frustrating for legitimate massage therapists to be lumped into the same category as sex trade workers.

“The majority of us are ethical health practitioners,” Schnel said. “I want to protect the profession because it has taken us so long to gain respect and get referrals from physicians.”

City Council members adopted the moratorium as a way to give city employees time to analyze whether new land use regulations governing massage businesses should be considered. Per updated state law, cities can once again specifically regulate the location and conditions of operation for massage businesses.

Boloyan said the city is looking into potential zoning options for massage businesses.

“We’re doing some preliminary research to see what other cities are doing,” Boloyan said.

Rhonda Kutter, a San Rafael massage therapist, said it’s not a good idea for the city to return to the method of having specific zoning regulations and making people get conditional use permits.

“It’s prohibitively expensive,” Kutter said.

Instead, she said the city should keep up on its enforcement activities.

“We have to be diligent about keeping it in the attention of the City Council and staff that there needs to be that enforcement,” Kutter said.

Both Kutter and Schnel are part of the Massage Ordinance Advisory Committee, which has been working with city employees to brainstorm ideas for regulating massage businesses that have a less negative impact on legitimate therapists.

Phillips said he understands that some massage therapists have concerns about the moratorium, but said he believes legitimate massage practitioners should be supportive of the measures to drive the illicit businesses away.

“I do think that by taking the steps we have, it improves the situation for everyone including the legitimate operators,” Phillips said. “We’ll continue to press the issue.”

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