(The Center Square) – The city of Federal Way in south King County, Washington has no shortage of massage parlors, and local authorities are making it harder for those that may be breaking the law.
In some parts of the city, you will find several massage parlors on the same block, with bright neon signs flashing “open” 24 hours a day.
And according to Federal Way Police and the mayor, dozens of these massage businesses are suspected of providing illegal sexual services, and they believe many of the women working there are being trafficked or held against their will.
“According to the Association of Massage Therapists, there are 65 illicit massage parlors in the city of Federal Way and that has got to change,” said Mayor Jim Ferrell in a Monday interview with The Center Square. “There are a lot of bad actors.”
For about a year, the Federal Way City Council has been debating and tweaking an ordinance that seeks to crack down on massage businesses that are operating as prostitution fronts.
“We want to make sure there are no cash transactions. That the doors remain open and that the people providing services are licensed,” said Ferrell.
The ordinance would require visible display of state massage therapy licenses and services offered and would restrict business hours to between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.
It would also prohibit internal warning systems intended to alert staff to a police presence, where in some cases employees and customers have run out the back door if the alarm sounds.
Federal Way Deputy Chief of Police Casey Jones told The Center Square thirty years ago, the city had a massage parlor ordinance.
“Our staff would go in and do inspections on the place, but then the state had some new laws that appeared to preempt the city’s authority to regulate massage parlors,” said Jones. “So, we took them completely off the books. And they kind of just proliferated and we got a ton of new ones.”
Under Washington state law, such as RCW 35A.82.025, massage practitioners are designated as state-licensed health care providers. This statewide framework often prevents local municipalities from imposing unique or additional licensing restrictions, operations mandates or police inspections on them that aren’t similarly imposed on other health professionals like physical or occupational therapists.
According to the ‘The Network‘, a non-profit dedicated to dismantling the illicit massage industry, there are some 16,000 illicit massage storefronts in the U.S., making a $5 billion profit each year.
Given that many of the transactions are done in cash, Jones said crime often follows.
“All kinds of crime. Burglaries, robberies and lots of violence and we’ve seen a significant increase,” said Jones. “We even had a rape in one of these places and there have been multiple shootings.”
The ordinance did create a carve out so legitimate operations can pass inspections and avoid some of what the industry found most objectionable.
Licensed therapists who voluntarily request and then pass a city-inspection and show a business license and state credential will be exempted from the unlocked front door requirement, the ban on all cash transactions, and the internal warning system.
Massage industry advocates told the council the internal alarm system is needed to protect employees and operates as a panic button for worker safety.
Jones said the city has partnered with organizations that can help massage workers who have been victims of human trafficking.
“They’re doing that work for a number of reasons and many of them include being taken advantage of. Whether it’s work hours or human trafficking and coercion or having to pay off a debt. We’ve seen it all.”
The goal is not to prosecute the women providing the services at these businesses because the department considers them victims.
Kristine Moreland, executive director of The More We Love, is at the center of that rescue mission in the city of Renton.
The shelter she runs is at max capacity on most days.
“We took 128 crisis calls in 12 days,” said Moreland in an interview last month with The Center Square.
Moreland told The Center Square the lack of prosecution for the buyers and traffickers is fueling the trade because they know if they’re caught, it’s little more than a slap on the wrist.
Part of her work involves interviewing the buyers, so they can find ways to reduce demand.
“What are we really doing to address the addiction of buying sex? What are we doing to address the underlying trauma? Sometimes there is child exploitation or things that take place in their own worlds that lead to this,” said Moreland.
“Make it mandatory they go into something like ‘john school’. That is diversion. That is reform. When somebody gets a DUI, they have to go to the MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) classes and learn what their driving drunk would have done to the mothers,” she added.
Jones said with so much attention to the issue at recent public hearings, he know residents are paying attention to the issue.
“So, if they do know something or suspect it’s an illicit business, then certainly they can give us a call. Or if they have inside information that somebody is looking to get out of the business, we’ll certainly take that information, too. We want to look at it from several different angles to best fix the problem.”