Alameda County extends moratorium on new massage parlors - East Bay Times

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HAYWARD — Owners and operators of massage facilities looking to open up shop in unincorporated Alameda County communities will have to wait a bit longer.

At their Feb. 7 meeting, county supervisors voted 4-0 vote to extend a 2015 moratorium on new massage parlors to give planning officials time to craft new zoning and land use restrictions so the facilities comply with changes in state laws. Supervisor Nate Miley was absent.

Those changes, approved by state lawmakers in September 2014, include “the process for allowing massage facilities and limitations on what the county can and cannot regulate,” Assistant Planning Director Rodrigo Orduna said in a Feb. 17 interview.

California’s massage parlor regulations date back to 2008, when state lawmakers approved a law that created a voluntary certification process for massage therapists and restricted the ability of cities and counties to pass ordinances that regulate massage practices by certified massage practitioners or therapists.

Those restrictions required local governments to enforce and create land use or zoning laws that treat massage parlors no differently than any other professional or personal business, such as barbers and nail salons.

It also established the California Massage Therapy Council, a Sacramento nonprofit charged with reviewing and approving certifications and creating application requirements, such as providing fingerprints and undergoing a criminal background check.

Alameda County leaders enacted a moratorium in 2011 that was in effect until 2012. It that allowed planners to amend land use laws in some unincorporated communities where massage facilities, unlike other professional or personal service business, had to get a conditional use permit to operate.

County leaders later approved a policy “allowing massage facilities to operate wherever medical offices or licensed cosmetologists were allowed to operate but requiring that certified massage practitioners and therapists register with the county,” according to a Jan. 17 Alameda County Community Development Agency memo to supervisors.

State lawmakers, however, reversed course and approved a new law in 2014 that reaffirmed the county’s ability to impose land use restrictions on massage businesses and allowed cities and counties to prohibit non-certified massage therapists from practicing in their communities.

That decision, coupled by concerns of prostitution at some massage businesses, prompted county supervisors to impose another moratorium in January 2015 so land use and zoning laws could be amended again.

From 2010 to January 2015, when the law took effect, 27 massage facilities were registered in unincorporated communities, including Castro Valley, San Lorenzo, Cherryland and Ashland.

Eight of those businesses, however, were closed over time following law enforcement investigations of possible criminal activities.

“The moratorium allowed the county to, among other related tasks, begin to study and consider a revised ordinance that most effectively regulates certified massage establishments and prevents prostitution activities disguised as massage therapy,” the Jan. 17 supervisors memo read.

The moratorium was extended last year and was set to expire last week before supervisors approved a second extension that runs until Feb. 7, 2018. County staff and legal advisers are still reviewing proposed changes to the zoning ordinance and specific regulations for massage businesses, Orduna said.

“We wanted this moratorium as well so that we could make that we comply with what our community wants as well as with the state’s new rules,” Orduna said in a Feb. 17 interview.

Contact Darin Moriki at 510-293-2480 or follow him at Twitter.com/darinmoriki.

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