Duluth City Council may tweak massage parlor rules - Duluth News Tribune

In an email to councilors, Lisa Richards, owner of Full Circle Massage, wrote: "I hate that there are people that use my profession, my legitimate profession, as a way to sell sex and traffic humans. I absolutely want nothing more than for that not to be part of what people think of when they think of massage."

While Richards said she fully supports the city requiring massage therapists to provide proof that they have undergone at least 500 hours of certified training in the field by an accredited school, she warned that some of the other new restrictions could pose a hardship for legitimate businesses, such as her own.

In particular, Richards expressed concern about a proposal that would limit her hours of operation to between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., as well as a requirement that the customer entrance to her business be left unlocked during her posted business hours.

She stressed the importance of being able to offer flexible scheduling and noted that leaving her front door open at all times, even when she's in the midst of an appointment in another room, would leave the front desk and lobby of her one-person operation vulnerable to unwelcome intruders.

There's a balance to be struck, said 1st District City Councilor Gary Anderson.

"I understand that you don't want to have illegal activities going on behind a locked door, but hopefully there are enough other provisions in the ordinance to ensure that we have reputable people who have these licenses," he said.

Duluth Police Chief Mike Tusken said the proposed ordinance was modeled after one adopted by Blaine, Minn. But he indicated a willingness to modify the document.

"We want to make sure we get this right, and if there is particularly burdensome language in here that we can correct that isn't going to negate our ability to do enforcement, we're certainly open to that," he said.

At Large Councilor Arik Forsman said he and other councilors are considering some possible tweaks that could be made to the proposed ordinance, in light of what they've heard from massage therapists.

"I think there are some work-arounds to address those concerns and still preserve all the really good work that Mike's doing to try to reduce the potential of some of the really bad things that could happen when we have bad actors in that space," he said.

Tusken noted that recent events attest to the problems that can arise in the absence of adequate enforcement.

"I know that most or many folks believe that in the city of Duluth we don't have a problem with sex trafficking, but ... we worked for more than a year on a substantial case that ulitmately culminated in an arrest just last month. So, it does exist," he said.

In March, three massage parlors in the Twin Ports were closed and the couple that owned them all has been charged with sex trafficking and racketeering.

"This ordinance, while it may be a small inconvenience to some legitimate businesses, is going to be an incredibly important tool for us to be able to investigate those who are using a front of a business to really traffic human beings," Tusken said.

He argued for a local ordinance with more teeth, "so that we can do the enforcement we need to protect people who are in modern-day slavery — people who are being trafficked and victimized. That was certainly the case in this last investigation we did."

While the recent massage parlor busts demonstrate the potential for misbehavior, Tusken suggested such operations are more of an aberration than the norm.

"The vast majority of these businesses are legitimate. They provide a legitimate service, and they don't have issues," he said. "But we need to have an ordinance in place that will allow us to do effective enforcement."

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