Angry Masseuses Denounce Plan to Triple Their Fees

Orange County massage therapists are up in arms about a plan to nearly triple their yearly license fees to $939, which the Sheriff’s Department says is the cost of a background check in a field notorious for prostitution.

Therapists say charging more for licenses discourages the wrong people. A prostitute can afford higher fees but the legitimate therapist fresh from school cannot, said a spokeswoman for the California Massage Therapy Assn.

The association is negotiating with the Sheriff’s Department, hoping to make education and professional testing rather than criminal records the criteria for licensing.

The group’s long-range goal is to have the state Department of Consumer Affairs, which regulates various professions and vocations, take over regulation of massage therapy.

“What you’re dealing with is a large profession trying to prove itself to be legitimate. And the large majority is legitimate,” said Sheriff’s Lt. Russ Elsner, who supervises massage therapist licensing for unincorporated Orange County.

“I wish we could have a window: ‘All the professionals on the left, please, and the people in prostitution on the right.’ It’s an unfortunate thing that a number of professionals have to put up with this.”

But, Elsner said, prostitution remains a problem within the massage therapy field. “Our vice people say that in the last 18 months there have been 31 violations from massage parlors alone--from acts of prostitution to unlicensed massagists.”

He said there are five massage parlors and 30 massage therapists licensed in county territory, “mostly scattered through the south county.”

Under the county ordinance, to receive a license an applicant must have a certificate from a state-certified school, have undergone 200 hours of schooling and have a “good moral character,” which generally is interpreted to mean no felony convictions. Prostitution is not specifically mentioned. Any false statement on an application means automatic denial of the license.

Applicants are fingerprinted and photographed, and fingerprints are checked against national and state crime files. Sheriff’s vice detectives investigate each applicant, Elsner said. Besides routine checking, “we stake them out, and we go in and get massages,” he said.

The fee was $366 when the County Board of Supervisors decided last year that applicants for all county licenses should be charged the actual cost of issuing the licenses.

A auditor’s analysis of the typical massage therapist background check set the cost at $939. County officials said it would be one of the biggest fee increases under the new policy.

When the Sheriff’s Department recommended that fee to county supervisors Oct. 19, representatives of massage therapists were there to protest. Supervisors postponed their decision pending further study.

M.K. Hungerford, who operates a school in Costa Mesa known as the American Institute of Massage Therapy, is on the massage association’s Orange County legislation committee and has been negotiating with the Sheriff’s Department. She said her organization represents about 200 massage therapists in the county.

“Every surrounding city charges less than the county does,” she said in an interview. “You can get your license in Irvine, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, even Los Angeles, for $100 to $300. It’s ludicrous to charge more.”

She said the statewide organization is getting ready to lobby for statewide licensing but, in the meantime, she wants local authorities to concentrate on education and testing as a way of qualifying legitimate massage therapists.

She said some jurisdictions require no more than 100 hours of schooling before issuing a license. “In three provinces of Canada they require 2,200 hours. In Europe, you have to have 2 years. But we’re still besieged with people who want to take 100 hours in 10 days and call themselves massage therapists,” Hungerford said.

A person with such limited training “can wreak havoc--a nerve pinch, a muscle tear,” she said. “I don’t care if she’s a prostitute as long as she’s a competent massage therapist. If they legalized prostitution, these women wouldn’t have to pretend to be massage therapists.”

Elsner said a review of the Sheriff’s Department’s procedures shows some alternatives are possible.

He said the typical prostitute posing as a massage therapist works in a massage parlor. Whether the massage parlor is a front for prostitution or a legitimate business, the prostitution often is solicited there and conducted elsewhere, he said.

Massage therapists doing business in places “that don’t lend themselves to prostitution”--such as beauty salons--might be given less scrutiny and therefore charged a lower fee, Elsner said.

He said the Sheriff’s Department is also studying a San Diego ordinance that deals with holistic health-care practitioners.

“In essence, it states that if I have x amount of hours from a state-certified school and belong to a state or national professional massage organization and within a 2-year period received 30 hours of continuing education, then I’m exempt from fees and background checks,” Elsner said.

“There are good and bad points. At this time, it would be awfully hard for the Sheriff’s Department to rely on someone to police themselves. They want to say, ‘These people are good because they passed our tests, and they’re one of our members.’ But there is still a prostitution problem.

“We may examine giving the tests ourselves. Perhaps that will satisfy both the profession and law enforcement,” Elsner said.

Ahmos Netanel, president of the California Massage Therapy Assn., said his group is preparing to ask for statewide regulation but that a bill will not be submitted until after the current session of the Legislature. The association is seeking a minimum of 500 hours of instruction to qualify for a license, Netanel said.

Statewide licensing would be “ideal,” Hungerford said, “but right now I’d be happy to have the local licensing concentrate more on what a person knows than how much money they’ve got.”

Elsner said an amended plan by the Sheriff’s Department should be ready for the Board of Supervisors “in 2 or 3 weeks.”