County relaxing massage rules

Jeff Schweers

Wednesday, Jan. 28, 1998 | 10 a.m.

Massage therapists have won several concessions from the Clark County Business License Department but are still working to strike a long-standing prohibition against outcall cross-gender massage.

County business license officials met with massage industry representatives this week. Substantive changes were made in a proposed ordinance that met with widespread opposition when it was first discussed Jan. 6.

"We will be making recommendations that are going to require a new ordinance being introduced," said Business License Director Ardel Jorgensen, who plans to make a full report to the County Commission on Tuesday.

Susan McGurk, an assistant director at the Physicians Institute, said the meeting went well and plans to report the results to a joint meeting of the Massage Coalition and the Nevada Massage Therapy Association on Tuesday.

The county agreed to remove one of the biggest issues for massage therapists, which was a physician oversight requirement added in June 1996 that required therapists to be affiliated with a physician, chiropractor or osteopath.

County officials also agreed to add a requirement that industry representatives insisted on: that chair massage therapists be fully licensed and meet the new 500-hour training requirement.

"If you want to do chair massage you have to be a full-licensed therapist, and because of potential dangers imposed on the public they should have the training," McGurk said.

Therapists conceded to language outlining opaque or see-through clothing. "We don't like the verbiage, but we understand they're trying to protect us," McGurk said.

Metro vice detectives agreed that the lighting regulations were too restrictive, and would have cost massage centers a small fortune in renovation costs. It originally called for prohibiting table lamps and portable lamps and required installation of permanent fixtures.

Also, the county agreed to establish an independent massage therapist rule allowing an occupational "license hang" at a therapist's home, similar to what the city ordinance allows.

Still in limbo is whether Metro will agree that records cannot be searched without a subpoena and due process, McGurk said.

But the one thing the county and Metro haven't budged on is outcall cross-gender massage -- which prohibits a therapist from giving a massage to someone of the opposite sex outside a licensed massage establishment.

Therapists say the prohibition leaves therapists with the option of turning away customers or breaking the law.

But Metro said prostitutes could latch themselves onto the outcall cross-gender massage. McGurk, however, said, "We're hoping to remove the undesirables in our profession through the educational requirement so we can have outcall."

Jorgensen also said that if the county eliminates the prohibition, it would affect other jurisdictions that still prohibit outcall cross-gender massage.