In Snafu, SDPD Permits & Licensing Unit Reports on Massage Parlors Wind Up on Happy Ending Review Site

"We meant to shut Hana Spa down. Instead, we doubled their business."

TOWELING OFF AND COUNTING OUT THE $120 FOR THE TIP, CLAIREMONT MESA - Pay a visit to RubMaps.com and you can read extraordinarily thorough (and extraordinarily NSFW) reviews of San Diego's massage parlors - the girls, the service, the pricing, you name it. If the level of detail and precise description seems surprising, well, there's a reason for that: the reviews are actually reports written by vice cops assigned to gather evidence of violations for the SDPD's Permits & Licensing Unit.

"We didn't really realize what was going on until we got that rough report from the City Auditor," says a source within the department who is familiar with the matter. The report noted that "the SDPD’s system for generating adult entertainer and massage therapist permits—GuardCard—is outdated and lacks features to ensure records can be accurately processed and reconciled to revenue transactions." Also that the department "is having difficulty keeping accurate and consistent records of amounts collected."

"We started digging around," continued the source, "and found that a number of massage establishments hadn't had their records updated in over a year. When we questioned the officers responsible, they insisted that they had written the reports and submitted them via the department's electronic filing system. And when we started looking into that, we discovered that the reports were being automatically rerouted to RubMaps and posted as straight-up customer reviews."

"Obviously," concluded the source, "there's a mole in the system. A very happy, very satisfied mole."