On Tuesday, the Village of Essex Junction Board of Trustees will consider proposed changes to its land development code that would make it more difficult to open massage parlors that allow criminal activities on their premises. The measure, introduced by village trustee Elaine Sopchak, comes in response to revelations last year by Seven Days that at least three Chittenden County massage parlors, including the now-defunct Seiwa Spa in Essex Junction (seen right in a May 2013 photo), were allegedly offering sex for money, possibly by female workers who were the victims of human trafficking.
The proposal, scheduled for discussion at the board’s February 11 meeting, would create a new section of the village’s land development code that specifically targets massage establishments. According to Sopchak, the new code would define what constitutes a massage parlor and would require a public hearing before one may open, as well as routine inspections and an annually renewable business permit.
The new code would also place physical restrictions on such businesses, such as prohibiting sleeping quarters on the premises, banning locks on massage room doors and not allowing customers to enter and exit from the rear of the building. Sopchak, who’s been working closely on the new code with Essex Police Chief Brad LaRose, said that many of the proposed changes are borrowed from a model ordinances developed by the Polaris Project, an international anti-human-trafficking group based in Washington, D.C.
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
Let’s address crime and protect its victims, but leave massage therapists alone. Many states license massage, yet prostitution and human trafficking continue unabated, while legitimate professional massage therapists are burdened with expensive hoops that protect no one. (I’ve worked as a licensed massage therapist in two such states.) Massage licensing doesn’t even increase the likelihood of getting a good massage.
As I recall, the problem here wasn’t finding the things, the problem was that certain law enforcement executives claimed that they didn’t have time to investigate or prosecute this stuff.
You make this a zoning beef and you let certain police chiefs off of the hook, in the future they will shrug it off as a zoning violation. This will then set up town health officers to go investigate criminals and multi-state criminal syndicates. Bad idea.
Let’s stop criminals and protect the victims, but leave legitimate massage therapists alone. In the many U,S, states that regulate massage therapy, the rise in prostitution and human trafficking continues unabated. I have practiced as a licensed massage therapist in two of those states. Licensing not only doesn’t deter crime, it doesn’t even increase the likelihood of getting a good massage. It just burdens massage therapists with expensive, time-consuming hoops to jump through — the costs of which are passed along to clients.