YORBA LINDA : Massage Parlors, Workers Face Fees

Massage parlor owners and their employees will have to pay annual fees to conduct business in the city.

Hoping to prevent illegal activity at massage parlors, the City Council this week approved a fee structure to help pay the costs of background investigations of business owners and technicians.

Massage parlor owners must pay $225 to open a new business and then must pay a yearly renewal fee of $112.50. New massage technicians must pay $113 initially and $56.50 each year thereafter.

Last month, the council passed regulations that include requiring massage parlor technicians to have a minimum of 500 hours of training from a state-licensed massage therapy school. Technicians at beauty parlors and other establishments where massage represents only 25% of the business need only a minimum of 100 hours of training.

Although Yorba Linda has only a few massage businesses and has experienced no problems with illegal activity, city officials decided regulations were needed to prevent the types of trouble encountered by other cities, said City Manager Arthur C. Simonian. “We just wanted to be proactive,” he said.

The city of Newport Beach, for instance, became known as the “Massage Capital of Orange County” because of a proliferation of massage businesses attracted by the city’s lack of regulations. Police officials there estimated that about half of the 43 massage parlors in the city were fronts for prostitution and other illegal activity.

Alarmed by that report, Newport Beach officials recently adopted a law that requires the businesses pay $200 each and apply for a use permit.