SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. — In a half-square mile radius in the city of Lemon Grove, with a population of just over 26,000 people, there are 12 massage parlors, seven of them opening on or after 2020.
According to a forum-driven mapping website where users go to find massage illicit massage, there are 10 listed in the city of Lemon Grove.
The numbers
According to the same website,
- There are 434 registered erotic massage parlors in the city of San Diego
- Chula Vista there has 28 listed
- El Cajon has 21 listed
- Escondido has 34 listed
The proliferation of illicit massage parlors is now resulting in more and more cities in San Diego County enacting land-use regulations aimed at making it more difficult for illegally operating shops to open.
Lemon Grove Ordinance
On November 21, Lemon Grove city staff hope its city council will move closer to becoming the sixth city in San Diego County, behind Santee, El Cajon, Escondido, National City and San Marcos to combat the proliferation of erotic parlors through land-use laws.
In Lemon Grove's proposed ordinance, the city would cap the number of establishments at eight citywide as well as require that owners and therapists pass background checks.
In addition, therapists must have and display state certificates. Businesses must also limit hours from 9 am to 9 pm.
Tuesday night, the council unanimously approved the first reading of this ordinance. A final vote is expected to take place on December 5.
"This is an effort to make sure that everybody is safe, that we promote our businesses but that everybody at the same time has safety as a priority," Lemon Grove City Council Member Alysson Snow told CBS 8.
"We really want to make sure that people are protected, and put these safety measures in place," Snow added, "and that way our community is safer as a whole."
San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan, who has focused on combatting sex trafficking in San Diego, acknowledges the proliferation of erotic massage parlors as well as the difficulties of shutting them down.
"It doesn't take an expert to drive around and spot these illicit massage parlors," Stephan told CBS 8. "You can tell by the advertising, you see that the curtains and doors are closed. As soon as you walk it becomes very clear what you're embarking on."
But Stephan says enforcement has proved difficult for a number of reasons.
Enforcement
For one thing, the District Attorney says the women who are so often victims of sex trafficking or are recent immigrants who are unable to escape are typically unwilling to cooperate with law enforcement. Likewise, the client, or as Stephan calls them, "the criminal buyers," also choose to cooperate. Stephan says that leaves the criminal enforcement options to conduct raids on suspected erotic parlors typically through the use of undercover officers posing as a prospective clients.
"We used to be able to set up an undercover police officer to go in and pretend that they are a buyer and be able to record what is happening and use that for further investigation," said Stephan. "Many of these establishments now require clients to strip completely, which is something that we can't really subject our police officers to do. We have to act ethically despite how unethical and illegal these businesses are."
And while criminal enforcement has proved a difficult task, Stephan says her office has had a number of busts in recent months including the prosecution of a former SDPD detective who later pleaded guilty to operating several illegal parlors in San Diego and Arizona.
So to combat the increase of illegally run parlors, Stephan said her office has focused on criminal enforcement when available while also investigating labor practices in hopes of shutting the businesses down.
"We have worked with federal prosecutors on a number of cases that relate to labor practices that are illegal, whether that is tax fraud, workers compensation, fraud, EDD fraud," said Stephan. "We don't want to go after the young women in there that are already being victimized, that is not our target. In order to be effective, we have to go after the operators, the traffickers, the owners, and that's what we've focused on. It's a little like going after the mob in that sense."
Those labor-focused investigations have resulted in the shutdown of at least four enterprises, all of which were based on the businesses not paying into state unemployment and other labor violations.
The third and final prong, said Stephan, is to have local jurisdictions implement land use laws and other regulations with the goal of differentiating between actual massage services and those posing as them.
"The way for San Diego County to have a win is to continue our strong law enforcement actions or workplace justice, but have every city and the county have the strongest controls through their ordinances. So we applaud the city of Lemon Grove for working on this important issue."