(A) The purpose of this chapter is to promote the public health, safety, and welfare by licensing and regulating massage parlors, massage schools, and other similar businesses offering massage therapy services.
(B) The City Council finds and determines that licensing standards pertaining to massage therapy business activities are necessary to protect the public health and safety and the personal safety of massage therapists.
(C) The City Council further finds that public health and safety is best served by the adoption of a model ordinance providing for regulation of massage businesses in a manner that is consistent throughout the City of Sterling Heights.
(D) The purpose of this chapter is to insure the protection of the public health and safety and the personal safety of massage therapists through the establishment of certain licensing standards pertaining to massage therapy business activities within the city and to recognize massage therapy as a legitimate business occupation and health enhancement service.
(E) This model ordinance shall provide for the consistent regulation and licensing of massage therapy business activities throughout the city. The requirements are designed and intended to prevent illegal massage, human trafficking, prostitution, and related crimes without hindering legitimate massage establishments and their massage therapists. Establishments that offer massage therapy as a subterfuge for human trafficking, prostitution, paid sexual contact, and other similar crimes are harmful to the public health, safety, and welfare. The City Council recognizes that human trafficking is a significant problem in the United States, and it can involve the use of massage establishments or massage activities as a front where victims are forced into involuntary servitude, deceived into debt bondage, and forced against their will to perform sex acts. Statistics compiled by the federal government have ranked human trafficking only behind drugs and arms trafficking as the most profitable criminal activity. More than 80% of victims are female, and 80% of trafficking involves sexual exploitation. Physical injury and disease are often consequences of human trafficking, and many victims are under the age of 18. For these reasons and more, the adoption of ordinance provisions in order to assist with detecting and preventing human trafficking is warranted.
(F) The holding of any massage-related license issued pursuant to this chapter is hereby declared to be a privilege, and not a right.
(G) The provisions of this chapter shall be held to be the minimum requirements adopted for the promotion of the public health, safety, and general welfare of the people of the city receiving services from massage establishments.
(Ord. No. 468, § 1, 2-4-20)