Council split over massages

Jeffrey Libby

Thursday, Aug. 9, 2001 | 10:23 a.m.

Henderson City Council members had mixed reactions to an ordinance introduced Tuesday that would set a precedent in the Las Vegas Valley. It would allow massage therapists to perform opposite-sex massages in customers' homes and hotel rooms.

On Wednesday the mayor and mayor pro-tem were undecided. Of the two councilmen who are Metro Police officers, one supports it and the other opposes it. The sole councilwoman favors the ordinance, saying it is "no big deal."

Cross-gender massage has only been allowed since the mid-1990s and only at massage establishments. Outcall massage service has been prohibited in Henderson. Mesquite also prohibits outcall massage, except to medical facilities.

In Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and unincorporated Clark County, outcall massage service has been legal since the mid-1990s -- but only when the therapist and customer are the same sex. Cross-gender outcall massage has been specifically prohibited in an effort to discourage prostitution.

But the ordinance Henderson proposed Tuesday would change all that.

Councilman Andy Hafen, a Metro detective for 18 years, said he is opposed to it.

"It's not my intention to vote for an ordinance that allows cross-gendered massage in hotel rooms," Hafen said Wednesday, after reviewing Las Vegas and Clark County codes. "I know we're trying to legitimize massage, but it seems like with this we're asking for trouble."

Councilman Jack Clark, also a longtime Metro detective, said by increasing schooling from 500 to 700 hours and adding requirements for work cards and for national certification, Henderson Police should be able to monitor outcall businesses.

"If we have people who are educated in their craft, and we can pull workcards, we'll be able to enforce compliance," Clark said. "There aren't, frankly, a whole lot of hookers willing to go to school for 700 hours to ply their craft."

With the proposed credentials in place, massage therapists could register their home as a business address and do an exclusively outcall business.

"It would mean a tremendous opportunity to do their work more freely," Vahan Tafralian, chief executive officer of Dahan Institute of Massage Studies, said. "We tell our students to develop their own private clientele and this would allow them to do that."

Tafralian, who has also worked as a lobbyist for the massage industry, says Las Vegas and Clark County should take their cue from Henderson and catch up with the rest of the country. Very few municipalities have restrictions on outcall cross-gendered massage, he said.

Even in Las Vegas and Clark County, massage establishments with outcall services appear to play a limited role in prostitution arrests by Metro Police. Of 3,760 arrests involving prostitution in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2000, just 83 resulted from incidents in which massage therapists asked undercover police to pay for sex, according to police records. Many more arrests resulted from outcall entertainment services and streetwalkers.

The vast majority of illegal activity involving massage these days, Councilwoman Amanda Cyphers said, is the massage itself, the outcall variety that is now illegal.

"Even before this ordinance and even now, it happens all the time," Cyphers said. "People want to get massages in the comfort of their own home. It's something you find throughout the nation, and internationally, really. I don't see it as such a big deal."

Mayor Pro-tem Steve Kirk said, "I don't think I have a big problem with it," but he said he wanted to review records from Metro Police. Mayor Jim Gibson is also undecided. He called the ordinance "a quantum leap."

While Gibson said he acknowledges the world has changed and that he wants the homebound senior population to be served, he also said he is hesitant to expose the public to new risks without sufficient cause.

"I'm concerned about our ability to regulate something that in many cases would be carried out in people's homes or motel rooms," Gibson said. The council votes formally on the ordinance Aug. 21.