Massage parlors struggle to keep it clean

By Tony Cook

Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2007 | 10:41 a.m.

It's after midnight and Ben Lee is tending the front desk at Kingdom Massage in Chinatown.

He watches a television that beams satellite TV from China. The door jingles, and a pink neon glow pours in from the storefront, followed by a trio of middle-aged men.

Lee, a native of Hong Kong, is well built and wears a black tight-fitting Giorgio Armani T-shirt. He could almost pass for a nightclub bouncer if it weren't for the softening effect of his eyewear, large glass squares with diamondlike studs at their corners. From behind them, he studies the three men.

"What kind of massage do you want?" he says to them. "Deep tissue? Swedish? One hour?"

The three men exchange glances. "What do you guys want?" the tallest asks his buddies. His tone is that of a host laying out a feast before guests. The other two men shrug, then look down at the floor tiles.

"I want a good rub," the tall one tells Lee.

"A good rub?" Lee says, his face crunching in confusion.

The tall guy just nods.

Lee signs them up for one-hour deep-tissue massages. All three pay cash. As Lee counts the bills, the tall one says, "I get first pick."

This is the 50-year-old Lee's nightly predicament. With an average of 15 to 20 clients in a 24-hour period, he needs all the customers he can get. But with many being interested in more than just a massage, he must decode their requests and make split-second decisions about the liability they pose. The tension is constant.

Earlier, a caller asked whether he could get a "full-service" massage.

"We only do full-body," one of Lee's employees said.

Amid this nightly quagmire, Lee has a new worry. Clark County is considering an ordinance that would restrict operating hours for massage parlors, forcing them to close from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.

Lee says he does more than 70 percent of his business during those hours - casino workers, firefighters, airport-baggage handlers, even police officers.

Before the middle-aged trio, Lee had three customers since beginning his shift at 9 a.m. One was a woman who had just finished playing slots after a dinner at Coco's. Another said he was a Las Vegas businessman fresh off a late flight home from Chicago. The third was Mark Cessieu, a 28-year-old manager at Circo in the Bellagio who came in after work.

Spurred by the proposed law, Lee and the owners of other Clark County massage parlors are organizing as an industry for the first time. Representatives from 16 parlors showed up at a recent zoning meeting where the proposed ordinance was introduced.

In addition to restricting hours, the law would require a 200-foot separation from residential properties and a 1,000-foot distance between massage establishments. The law would apply to those seeking new permits, but the county would have the discretion to restrict the hours of those seeking renewals as well.

The budding trade organization, tentatively called the United Massage Business Association, has hired attorney Allen Lichtenstein.

"This is an ordinance that will put many of them out of business," Lichtenstein said. "These are mom-and-pop businesses. The smaller independent places get put into a competitive disadvantage."

The proposed law would apply only to establishments where massage is the primary activity. Large salons and casino-related massage businesses would be exempt.

Lichtenstein said there also are constitutional concerns.

"When you can't open up on a block where everything is 24 hours, then I think you have a bunch of equal-protection issues," he said.

Lisa Cooper of the state massage board said she supports the county's move to restrict hours. At some 24-hour operations, massage therapists are living on the premises. That's illegal, she said.

County officials agreed to meet with Lichtenstein and massage parlor representatives to discuss their concerns. County commissioners are expected to take up the issue in December.

Until then, Lee is hoping business will pick up. By the end of the night, his 24-hour customer count totals 12, short of his daily target.

He said he'll keep up efforts to root out bad apples before Metro Police do. But he said it's not easy. A full-body massage requires privacy, and he can't always know what his therapists are doing behind closed doors. Not that he doesn't try, he said.

He sometimes has friends come over for a massage to act as undercover agents, to tell him whether any "extra services" were offered.

He also said he asks his customers about their massages. A knowing smile accompanied by a wink is cause for concern. Lee says he has fired massage therapists based on such suspicions.

Those efforts are in addition to careful screening of new hires and a document he requires his workers to sign, promising they won't engage in sexual acts at work.

He's been successful, with one exception.

In 2005 an undercover Metro sting at Kingdom Massage resulted in the arrest of a massage therapist, Cooper said. The charges were later dismissed after negotiations with prosecutors, she said.

"That's a pretty good record for that neighborhood," she said.