Massage Parlors

Cho Ok-bun's fingers are long and strong, and in the days before they started to cramp with age they could massage muscles until knots loosened and stress was flicked away. She rolls your fingers in hers. She squeezes your palm. She says she can tell if you're healthy just by touching your hands.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department is seeking a man who has allegedly raped and robbed employees of massage parlors in Fontana, Chino Hills, Highland, San Bernardino, Loma Linda and Colton. Sheriff's officials say the man, age 25 to 45, 5 feet 9 to 6 feet tall and 200 to 250 pounds, was last seen May 2 robbing massage parlors in Fontana and Colton while wearing a blue Dodgers T-shirt, gray pants, dark shoes and a black and tan fisherman's hat.

The Planning Commission on Monday approved plans to build a day spa and massage center at the Kaleidoscope entertainment center on Crown Valley Parkway. The Burke Williams Day Spa would employ as many as 60 masseuses. The 12,000-square-foot facility will have 12 to 15 massage rooms, six to eight skin-care rooms as well as other health and beauty facilities. Clint Sherrod, the city's director of community development, initially recommended that the commission deny the company's proposal.

To help ensure that massage parlors are not fronts for prostitution, police will ask the City Council on Monday to more closely scrutinize applicants seeking business licenses. Vice detail officers are asking that all applicants be tested on their knowledge of massage, safety procedures and other elements of the profession, a practice already underway in Newport Beach. Costa Mesa already does background checks of applicants.

In the hope of weeding out those who use massage therapy as a front for prostitution, practitioners who apply for a license may need to pass a written test. Police were granted preliminary approval Monday from the City Council to develop an exam evaluating applicants' knowledge of health issues and techniques that are covered in certified massage schools that require 500 hours of study and practice. Formal approval may come this month.

Long troubled by illicit massage parlors, this Orange County city is turning to a novel weapon to drive prostitutes out of town: A multiple-choice quiz. Costa Mesa officials unveiled a plan last week to begin testing massage license applicants on their knowledge of the human body, massage techniques, laws, first aid and ethical conduct. Ideally, trained technicians will pass, and anyone else will fail.

Massage therapists will likely need to pass a written test demonstrating professionalism as part of a city effort to stamp out prostitution in massage parlors. The proposal won preliminary approval from the City Council two weeks ago. Some massage therapists said the test may be too difficult, adding that a three-hour national certification test already weeds out unqualified candidates.

Massage practitioners hoping to ply their trade in the city will have to abide by new rules adopted this week by the City Council. Under amendments to the city's existing requirements, masseurs and masseuses will need 600 hours of basic education if they lack experience in the field. The requirement increases by 100 the number of hours needed by new practitioners and falls in line with guidelines issued by the American Massage Therapy Assn.

The City Council has denied an appeal from the owner of the Claremont Therapeutic Shiatsu Massage Parlor to renew its city operating license, shutting down the city's single massage parlor. City officials on Wednesday denied the owner's request based on municipal code violations at the business, which is in the 900 block of Foothill Boulevard, said Bridget Healy, assistant city manager.

Owners of a Canoga Park business, which city authorities say poses as a health club but is really a massage parlor, missed a public hearing Friday to determine whether they will have to stop operating at their current location. In fact, other than the presiding zoning administrator, only one other person attended the hearing at the Sherman Oaks Woman's Club--an angry adjacent neighbor.