About a half dozen employees waited for customers to trickle in on a searing weekday afternoon at Ching Lau's foot massage spa -- a long, open room lined with armchairs and stools from which masseuses knead pressure points across people's soles.
The second-floor storefront near an Asian grocer in Rowland Heights is part of a wave of foot massage businesses that has saturated ethnic-Chinese neighborhoods in Los Angeles County over the last three years.
The popularity of foot massage has risen as cutthroat competition has sent prices downward. But now, business owners are dealing with a new problem: a crackdown by county and state officials who have ruled that they need licenses from the state Board of Barbering and Cosmetology.
A few weeks ago, investigators arrived at Lau's business, closed its doors and asked that everyone produce certification.
"It was so unfair," said Lau, who owns several other parlors and recently formed a foot massage business association. "They grabbed people without any explanation and cited two masseuses."
Authorities have raided about a dozen foot massage parlors in recent months, from San Gabriel to Rowland Heights, charging operators and masseuses with fines of up to $1,000.
The scrutiny has roiled business owners and employees in an industry that has increasingly become a refuge for poor immigrants from China -- many of whom consider the relaxed environs and better pay a superior option to working at a restaurant.
The action has prompted complaints from some in the Chinese American community that the state is unfairly targeting immigrant business owners and their employees.
An attorney representing a new association of foot massage parlor owners has argued that the industry employs more than 1,000 people -- many of the poorest Chinese emigres hoping to establish a foothold in the United States.
But investigators said it's the parlors that have to clean up their act, adding that they are concerned about the conditions they've seen.
Many masseuses aren't making minimum wage, said Terri McLaughlin, a business license investigator for the L.A. County Sheriff's Department who has spent recent months focused on enforcing the state law.
"There's no [workers'] compensation," she said. "There's a whole realm of problems."
McLaughlin said she has tried to explain the law to operators before citing them for violating the code but has found that some of the workers are not aware of their rights.
