Much has been made recently regarding an increase in the number of massage parlor businesses operating in the city of Santa Clarita. It is the highest priority of the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station to support all our local businesses, while at the same time ensuring they are operating within the parameters of the law and in compliance with all local, state, and federal regulations and licensing requirements.

This news is not new to your local authorities. Working proactively and in touch with concerns raised by community members, we identified and began addressing these challenges in March of 2008 after our involved residents provided information about illegal activity they believed was occurring at a number of local massage parlor businesses.

What followed these anonymous crime tips has been aggressive enforcement efforts for the past 24 months involving undercover operations, patrol related licensing requirement inspections, health related compliance checks, and general impromptu and unannounced visits from the city of Santa Clarita Sheriff’s Business Alliance, Community Preservation, and Building and Safety officials.

In fact, the city of Santa Clarita Sheriff’s Business Alliance has worked tirelessly to identify all the massage parlor businesses that are operating in violation of laws or ordinances, has sought to strengthen licensing requirements and ordinance language, and formed a multi-agency task force that has conducted a number of extensive operations over the past two years. This task force included members of the State of California Labor Department, the Los Angeles County Licensing Bureau, the Los Angeles County Employment Development Division, the Sheriff’s Major Crimes Bureau Vice Detail Morals Teams, your local Community Interaction Team (CIT), and the City’s Community Preservation and Building and Safety Divisions.

Since 2008, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Major Crimes Bureau has been very active in the area conducting 58 undercover enforcement operations at massage parlors throughout Santa Clarita. These operations resulted in approximately 20 arrests for prostitution and 30 for licensing violations.

In furtherance of these enforcement efforts, the multi-agency task force targeted 28 massage establishments operating within the City for potential labor, licensing, and code violations in November 2009.

As a result of the task force inspection, seven establishments were found to be operating without proper business licenses, nine were found to be in violation of Santa Clarita Municipal Codes and were issued citations, 10 were not in compliance with current building codes, and 14 were found to be in violation of the State Labor Code, which may result in the levying of substantial fines. Five locations were ordered to close and 13 business owners were subjected to additional state compliance audits.

Rest assured that these substantial crime prevention measures will continue. I intend to use every available resource at my discretion, which is allocated for this type of enforcement, to put an immediate stop to any unlawful activity at these massage parlors or any business operating illegally in our community. That being said, the last thing we want to do is hurt businesses that are operating within the law during challenging economic times.

Knowledge of illegal activities taking place at any of these businesses should immediately be reported to the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station at (661) 255-1121.

Anonymous crime tips can be made right here on on our Web site at SCVSheriff.com - Crime Tips, by calling (661) 284-2-TIP / (661) 284-2847, visiting Crime Stoppers or calling 1-800-222-TIPS (8477).

Best regards,

Captain Paul Becker
Chief of Police for the City of Santa Clarita