(A) In enacting this chapter, the City Council recognizes that commercial massage therapy is a professional pursuit that can offer the public valuable health and therapeutic services. The City Council further recognizes that, unless properly regulated, the practice of massage therapy and the operation of massage businesses may be associated with unlawful activity and pose a threat to the quality of life in the local community. Accordingly, it is the purpose and intent of this chapter to protect the public health, safety, and welfare by providing for the orderly regulation of businesses providing massage therapy services, discouraging prostitution, sex trafficking and related illegal activities carried on under the guise of massage therapy, and establishing certain sanitation, health, and operational standards for massage businesses.
(B) Furthermore, it is the purpose and intent of this chapter to address the negative impacts identified in the City Council’s findings to reduce or prevent neighborhood blight and to protect and preserve the quality of city neighborhoods and commercial districts; and to enhance enforcement of criminal statutes relating to the conduct of operators and employees of massage businesses.
(C) It is the Council’s further purpose and intent to rely upon the uniform statewide regulations applicable to massage practitioners and establishments that were enacted by the State Legislature in 2008 as Cal. Business and Professions Code §§ 4600 et seq., by Senate Bill 731, and amended in 2011 by Assembly Bill 619, and in 2014 by Assembly Bill 1147, to restrict the commercial practice of massage in the city to those persons duly certified to practice by the California Massage Therapy Council, and to provide for the registration and regulation of massage businesses for health and safety purposes to the extent allowed by law.
(Ord. 19-02, passed 6-18-2019)