Warren Council approves massage parlor ordinance

January 26, 2012 at 12:05a.m.

Saffold

WARREN

The Warren Health Department will begin notifying the city’s 10 recreational massage parlors as early as today that the city has a new ordinance that prohibits them from operating between midnight and 6 a.m.

When each parlor’s license is up for renewal next January, the business will have several other requirements to meet, such as obtaining a license costing $1,800 per year.

Those are among the features of a massage parlor ordinance Warren City Council unanimously approved Wednesday night.

All 10 council members were present for the vote.

The steps Councilwoman Cheryl Saffold and others followed starting in May of last year to get the legislation written and passed included a battle with the city’s law department, involvement of the nonprofit Mahoning Valley Organizing Collaborative and rallies in the streets.

The MVOC and its supporters have repeatedly discussed Warren’s massage parlors in terms of human trafficking, saying there are indications that women working in the parlors are being treated like slaves.

Several council members spoke of their hope that the legislation will help clean up Warren’s image and remove Warren massage parlor names from web sites catering to the sex trade.

“I’ve heard a lot of comments on how to take back the city,” said Councilman James Valesky. “Tonight we took a big step.”

Saffold said after the vote that her stance on the legislation probably made Law Director Greg Hicks and his colleagues in the Law Department want to “beat me up.”

“It’s been a long and arduous process,” Saffold said.

Hicks said Jim Ries, his deputy law director, spent more time on this piece of legislation than any other in his 36 years with the city.

Saffold and the law department disagreed last fall on whether the legislation should include a limit on hours of operation and include educational requirements.

Saffold felt those elements needed to be included if the law was going to have any “substance.”

Hicks and Ries still have concerns about whether they can defend the hours and education parts of the law, but they included them as long as council understood they might be challenged in court.

Nate Brown, an organizer with MVOC, which urged the city to enact a tough massage parlor law, said it wouldn’t surprise him if a massage parlor owner did challenge the new law, “but by all indications it will hold up.”

Brown said it’s likely that Warren’s massage parlors rake in as much as $15 million a year, so they have the money to sue and the money to pay the fees required by the law.

The law requires each massage therapist to obtain a license costing $640 per year and show proof that he or she has obtained 100 hours of education from a recognized school or has a certification from the National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork.

The law limits the number of parlors to the current 10, and it requires the health department to inspect each business at least 24 times per year — double the current number.

Bob Pinti, deputy health commissioner, said around half of the massage parlors already close by midnight.