10 of 12 Santa Monica Massage Parlors Victims of Test

Ten of Santa Monica’s 12 massage parlors have been forced to close, police and city officials said, after masseuses hired by the parlors flunked a new 125-question mandatory competency test.

The closings are not obligatory, police say, but the masseuses cannot start working again until they retake and pass the test, one of several requirements masseuses and masseurs must meet to obtain licenses in Santa Monica.

The test is the product of a recent law designed to toughen regulations for massage parlors, in a city that years ago police labeled a leading haven for massage and other “adult entertainment” businesses.

Working with “outside experts,” Santa Monica devised a test it considers “more comprehensive” than a similar one administered by Los Angeles. It contains 125 questions on anatomy, physiology, hygiene, first aid and massage techniques, said Karen Bancroft, director of the city’s Personnel Department, which was charged with giving the test.

The tougher massage ordinance, passed in 1986 but tied up in the courts until recently, was designed in part to prevent massage parlors from being used as fronts for prostitution, officials said.

Until 1980, regulations in Santa Monica were lax and allowed massage parlors to proliferate, with many allegedly housing prostitution operations, police say.

Officials began cracking down in 1980--after the number of masseuses and masseurs had reportedly nearly doubled in Santa Monica--with a tougher ordinance that required licensing for those wishing to ply the massage trade. That law was revised in 1986 to include the new test and other regulations.

But massage parlor operators fought the 1986 ordinance and sued. From the suit sprang a court order requiring the city to offer the test in Korean as well as English, City Atty. Robert Myers said.

Tests were administered in Korean, Spanish and English for the first time in October. Of 51 people who took the test, three men and nine women passed; 39 women failed, Bancroft said.

Myers said massage parlor operators again protested but finally lost an attempt last month to obtain a Superior Court injunction that would have blocked the city from telling parlor employees they could not work.

Bancroft said the test was fair and people who signed up to take it were given detailed information beforehand on the kinds of topics that would be covered. The city offers testing every 90 days so that masseuses and masseurs who have failed can retake the exam.

“The test went through very extensive validation,” Bancroft said. “The questions were questions anyone who is a licensed massage technician should be able to answer.”

Test results were then forwarded to the Santa Monica Police vice division. Two citations were issued to women who were found giving massages without a license. But most of the parlors simply decided to close because they didn’t have the certified personnel to staff them, vice officer Phil Sanchez said.

A masseuse at one of the two parlors that remained open said this week that business had not picked up noticeably since the competition closed. She said she passed the test and it wasn’t difficult.