SAN DIEGO—
San Diego is considering a crackdown on massage businesses to help fight prostitution and human trafficking, the third most lucrative illegal industry in the city after drugs and gun sales.
City officials say the proposed regulations, which the City Council’s public safety committee unanimously endorsed Wednesday, would provide enhanced enforcement without damaging legitimate massage businesses.
The regulations, which the full council is expected to approve later this fall, are based on recently approved rules in San Francisco and other cities across the state and the nation.
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“These changes are proven to help combat human trafficking while making sure we protect important and legitimate massage therapy professionals,” said Councilman Chris Cate before the committee vote.
Some massage therapists complained that the regulations, which would require police permits costing more than $2,000 per year, are too onerous and a “money grab” by the city.
They also complained that some of the regulations, such as a mandate to post signs within the businesses about human trafficking, would create a negative atmosphere that could turn legitimate customers off.
City officials said an aggressive crackdown is necessary based on the size of the human trafficking and prostitution problem.
During 87 undercover operations police conducted at massage businesses in 2018, detectives were solicited for prostitution 50 times. During the first nine months of 2019, detectives have been solicited 23 times during 46 undercover operations.
A 2016 study by the University of San Diego and Point Loma Nazarene University found that San Diego’s illicit sex economy generated $810 million a year, third behind illegal drugs at $4.8 billion and illegal gun sales at $920 million.
City officials said many massage therapists who become victims of human trafficking are typically recent immigrants, often from Asia, who answer ads that don’t mention the job will include a sexual element.
To discourage them from quitting, the owners of the massages businesses or others involved in the operation sometimes threaten the therapists with arrest, deportation or shaming their families by revealing they have had sex for money.
Local groups fighting human trafficking have estimated that about 100 of the roughly 650 massage businesses in San Diego are engaged in prostitution, human trafficking or related illegal conduct.
They say San Diego is particularly vulnerable to those problems because of the large presence of people in the military, many of whom have recently served in foreign countries where prostitution may be legal or isn’t as frowned upon.
An underground website that rates massage businesses based on the sexual acts available at them includes reviews of more than 200 therapists in the city of San Diego and a few dozen more elsewhere in the county.
The proposed regulations would revive a requirement that all massage businesses get police permits, which could be revoked for illicit activity.
Most massage businesses have been exempt from needing such permits since 2009, when the state passed a law shifting regulation to a statewide nonprofit called the California Massage Therapy Council.
But concerns about human trafficking prompted the state to shift course in 2017 and pass a new law to encourage — but not require — local governments to resume mandating their own permits.
The proposed regulations also would require therapists to wear professional clothing and massage businesses to keep their doors unlocked during operating hours, so law enforcement can enter more easily.
The city also would ban sleeping on site to help prevent human trafficking. San Diego police say they frequently find bedding and full kitchen facilities in massage businesses, which they say indicates therapists live there full-time.
The businesses also would have to post signs in English and Spanish explaining sex slavery and human trafficking.
The legislation would include a “revolving” or “rotating” door prohibition that would allow the city to refuse to issue a new massage permit at a location where a permit had been revoked during the previous two years.
City officials said this rule aims to prevent businesses with revoked permits from quickly changing the official owner to another associate so they can re-open quickly.
The proposal would also require permits for something called “sole practitioner” massage businesses, which city officials say make up roughly half of all local massage businesses.
Unlike therapists who travel from home to home or who work with a group of other therapists at a massage business, sole practitioner therapists work at a single site but don’t work with any other therapists.
Courtney Adams, a sole practitioner, said she objects to the requirement to post a human trafficking sign.
“It would feel horrible to have to post something like that,” she said. “I just hate that I have to deal with this stuff when I just want to heal people.”
Carla Cole, another sole practitioner, said the rules seem to be unfairly targeting small businesses and called the new permits a “money grab.”
Beverly May, director of governmental affairs for the California Massage Therapy Council, praised San Diego for refraining from onerous regulations and for proposing what she called national best practices.
“The draft ordinance has all the elements to be effective: adequate regulation of massage establishments, means to suspend and revoke a permit, and prohibition on the rotating door,” May said. “This is what’s being done throughout the country.”
