A new Montgomery County bill aims to prevent human trafficking at massage parlors, spas and similar businesses by banning people previously involved in trafficking or prostitution-related offenses from opening or managing these establishments.
“Trafficking in the labor or sex context doesn’t always occur or look the way people expect it to,” County Council member Dawn Luedtke said when introducing the bill Tuesday. “It often occurs in businesses that appear perfectly legitimate.”
The legislation would prohibit the county’s Department of Health and Human Services from issuing a license to a spa or massage parlor if a corporate officer or business manager associated with that business had previously been convicted of, charged with, or otherwise found responsible for human trafficking or prostitution-related offenses. Applicants who once owned or managed businesses whose licenses had been revoked would also be barred from obtaining a new license.
Since June 2024, the county has issued 40 civil citations to 25 different spas, and 13 spa owners have been charged with felony offenses for aiding and abetting illegal massage operations.
But there’s a legal loophole, Luedtke said.
“Some of the same individuals who end up getting cited shut down that particular business, and they just pop up as a new LLC, but it’s the same people in a different part of the county who apply for another license, and the cycle starts over again,” Luedtke said.
Sgt. Melissa Maines of Montgomery County Police’s Vice and Intelligence Unit said in a press release Monday that the unit has investigated multiple massage parlors and spas that were fronts for human trafficking.
“Following enforcement actions, the unit has repeatedly observed owners and employees associated with these illicit operations reestablishing themselves under new business names or at different locations, allowing the criminal activity to continue,” Maines said.
The legislation aims to prevent repeat offenders from opening new businesses. It’s co-sponsored by Council President Natali Fani-González and council members Sidney Katz and Kate Stewart. During Tuesday’s meeting, Council Vice President Marilyn Balcombe and council members Shebra Evans, Andrew Friedson, Will Jawando, Kristin Mink and Laurie-Anne Sayles asked to be added as co-sponsors.
A public hearing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on Sept. 15.
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