City to look at new rules for massage businesses
BY ANDREA SANDS
New city legislation could be drafted that more clearly distinguishes between sexual "body rub" parlours and massage professionals providing real health services, suggests a report to a city committee next week.
However, the former executive director of the 124th Street business association, who has been pushing the city to get tougher with what she calls "happy hands" massage parlours, wonders if the changed rules will go far enough. Helen Nolan said the city needs to force such businesses to be clear about the services they offer with the hope strict city business-licensing rules help clean up some Edmonton business districts peppered with sex-massage shops.
"I want to know what they're doing and I don't want them hiding behind a business licence that's iffy," Nolan said Thursday. "In my mind, there's no grey area. This is black and white. You're either happy hands or you're (providing a health service) . The legislation is watered down, so let's get it straightened out."
The proposed bylaw changes would help with that, according to the city report to be discussed Wednesday at an executive committee meeting.
The changes would bring together four separate bylaws under one bylaw, uniting the city's businesslicence bylaw with three separate bylaws that govern massage practitioners, exotic entertainers and escorts, said the report.
"This bylaw would also create a licence category for authentic health and wellness enhancement centres and practitioners," the report said. As well, the consolidated bylaw would regulate people and employers that "manipulate, touch or stimulate a person's body" when it is not "a health enhancement, medical therapeutic or cosmetic treatment," the report said.
Although the city's chief licensing officer characterized the suggested bylaw amendments as mostly "housekeeping" that would improve consistency across licensing rules, the proposed amendments would help city officials tell health and wellness businesses apart from sexrelated shops, Randy Kirillo said.
If councillors on the executive committee support the move, city officials will write up new licensing rules for businesses distinguished "by their lack of credentials, accreditation or membership in legitimate health or wellness associations," the report said.
Those businesses would then fall into a different categories than authentic health and wellness practitioners, Kirillo said. He noted police, not the city, are responsible for enforcing Criminal Code laws around the sex industry.
The report also suggests city officials should ask other municipal, provincial and federal departments and agencies to participate in a regulatory enforcement team dealing with businesses selling "erotic or body-rub" services.
That team could include federal immigration officials in case of concerns about human trafficking, Alberta Health Services officials to examine health issues, and Workplace Health and Safety officials to make sure work environments are safe, Kirillo said.
