NEWPORT BEACH : Massage Ordinance May Be Amended

The City Council has approved a revised ordinance governing massage businesses, but the law is likely to change almost as soon as it takes effect.

Therapeutic massage professionals--who do sports medicine and psychotherapy based massage--requested an exemption from portions of the ordinance, which is designed to curtail prostitution and other illegal activities that are often fronted by massage parlors.

The measure received unanimous approval at last week’s council meeting. Councilman John Cox was absent. The council, however, told staff to return in a month--to a substantially different council--with an exemption for the professional therapists.

Although professional therapists are classified as “holistic health professionals,” the ordinance still subjects them to the same background checks and other tests as massage technicians, who generally have less training and are not engaged in massage related to sports medicine or psychotherapy.

“I don’t want these people that are in a perfectly legitimate business to have to go through all this fingerprinting and venereal disease testing because that is degrading not only to them but to the city,” outgoing Councilman Phil Sansone said.

He recommended putting an exemption into the ordinance that was before the council but backed off when Revenue Manager Glen Everroad and Police Capt. Jim Jacobs said they had not had time to look into the suggested tests professionals would have to pass to get the exemption.

Sharon Norton, president of the Orange County chapter of the American Massage Therapists Assn., said that the national group’s test is too rigorous for impostors.

The Police Department will spend $39,342 a year--funded from the permit fees collected--to pay a new community services officer to administer the ordinance.