Pain in the neck

The massage zoning ordinance that time forgot.

By Annalee Newitz

SHELLEY CLARKSON WAS so tense she figured she'd need at least three back rubs to relax. A few months ago the San Francisco massage therapist had been in the kind of situation every small-business owner dreams of: she had enough business contacts and clients to justify opening her own store. But her dream of becoming an entrepreneur ran up against the hard reality of the city's archaic and often inexplicable zoning laws.

Section 790.60 of the Planning Code, originally intended to eradicate the city's red-light districts, required Clarkson to locate her business at least "1000 feet from the premises of any other massage establishment." She also discovered she'd have to get a permit from the San Francisco Police Department, which involves getting fingerprinted and submitting head shots for police records. Clarkson had been prepared for the usual hoops the city asks business owners to jump through, like getting permits from the health and fire departments, as well as a hefty fee to present her business plans before her local neighborhood association. But she hadn't expected to be treated like a criminal.

What Clarkson and many of her colleagues have discovered is that the city treats massage therapists like potential sex workers. Although activists, professional body workers' associations, and politicians have tried to reform the massage law, the ordinance remains on the books. A 2000 plan to reform the code, driven by Sup. Tom Ammiano and backed by individual massage therapists and sex workers' groups alike, remains in legislative limbo. At a time when massage is widely accepted by medical professionals as legitimate physical therapy, San Francisco remains unclear on the concept that massage does not equal sex.

Even the SFPD seems to be getting the idea. Lt. Bruce Lorin works in the department's permits office and handles many massage permit requests. He says he's seen an increase in so-called nonsensual massage-therapy businesses throughout the city over the past couple of years, and those therapists are tired of having to go through the SFPD for permits. He's gotten an earful of complaints from people like Clarkson, who say they're unfairly being treated like criminals. "It definitely discouraged me," Clarkson said. "I feel like it's an insulting process."

The police permit process has "always been a complaint" among therapists, said one representative of a San Francisco massage association, who asked not to be named. "It's getting worse," the representative told us. "The attitude is that everybody's a hooker."

Ammiano's proposed legislation would have taken the regulation of the massage industry out of the SFPD's hands and given it over to the Department of Public Health. After Mission-area neighborhood groups insisted the legislation include a moratorium on new massage establishments in the Mission, the proposal never made it out of committee.

Irene Diamond, a rehabilitation therapist who runs the Diamond Massage and Wellness Center on Lombard Street, is one of many small-business owners who believe the DPH should handle all massage-industry business in the city. She's owned her own massage business for four years and reckons she had few problems with her neighborhood groups and the Planning Commission because she has so much training in physical therapy. She also worked hard to canvass the neighborhood before she moved in, letting neighbors know she planned to use her business for massage therapy – not sensual massage.

But Diamond also emphasized that her priority is to make sure that the city recognizes the difference between massage therapy and sex work. "My standpoint is that we should legalize prostitution so that everybody's work is recognized as legitimate and nobody will confuse the two industries," she said. "That way, if you want sex, you can go to sex workers, and if you want a massage, you come to us."

Regulating massage parlors doesn't help curb prostitution anyway, she said. Prostitutes "left our industry, and now they're using tanning salons as cover." Indeed, busts for sex work in tanning salons are on the rise. The San Jose Metro reported all the way back in 1998 that Silicon Valley's "tanning spas" were turning a brisk business in tricks.