How routine massage parlor inspections could help Redondo Beach police - The Daily Breeze

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A push to require routine inspections of massage parlors countywide for signs of human trafficking could help law enforcement crack down on complaints in Redondo Beach, officials say.

Last week, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a motion from supervisors Janice Hahn and Hilda Solis to craft legislation requiring annual inspections by public health personnel trained to look for signals of sex and labor trafficking.

A draft ordinance should go before the board within 180 days.

Although the law would only affect unincorporated county areas, the idea is for cities to follow suit and adopt it locally.

Hahn, whose Fourth District takes in the coastal South Bay, said because state law does not require routine inspections, the law would help keep massage parlors from getting away with illegal activity and exploiting workers, who are often undocumented immigrants.

The board’s action prompted a response from the California chapter of the American Massage Therapy Association, which raised concerns that the ordinance could result in excessive fees.

Local implications


In Redondo Beach, where a concentration of massage businesses on Artesia Boulevard are a frequent source of consternation and complaints, police said the inspections could benefit their efforts.

“If they’re doing their inspections in conjunction with law enforcement stings, then that could definitely be a tool and getting to the real root of the problem,” said City Prosecutor Melanie Chavira. “The problem is the owners and the people who run the sex trafficking operation are very smart and savvy. These businesses know how to protect themselves.”

It takes skilled law enforcement to find out where workers are coming from, she said.

Because of the undercover nature of investigations, officials say the public may get the wrong idea that nothing is being done.

“In order to have a successful undercover operation, it has to be kept under wraps,” Chavira said. “So unfortunately the community is not going to be aware of the enforcement efforts by the police department because in order for that to be successful, it’s going to be under the radar.”

Statistics on massage parlor undercover operations and code violations in Redondo Beach were not immediately available.

But Police Chief Keith Kauffman said the department is always working on the problem.

“We’re actively working places and we do that all the time,” he said, adding that investigators are trained to look for signs of trafficking.

‘A human approach’


Typically, if undercover investigators find red flags, the city follows up with code enforcement, said Lt. Rick Kochheim.

Signs include boarded up windows, extremely low prices, video surveillance systems wired to the same outside adders — typically a home or office — and sharing a common owner.

The process involves working with the sheriff’s department, translators and experts who look for deeper signs, including whether workers use the same home address, how long they’ve been in the country, if their immigration paperwork is legitimate and if they are underage.

“Those are the types of things we look for if it’s more of a human trafficking situation as opposed to prostitution or something else,” Kochheim said.

He agrees that annual inspections would be helpful.

“I don’t really see a downside,” Kochheim said. “As long as they work in conjunction with what we’re doing, the inspections are unannounced and we’re not singling out one location.”

Over the years, law enforcement has changed its approach from being strictly about prostitution.

“Sometimes the right thing to do is a human approach as opposed to a law enforcement approach,” Kochheim said. “We really try to make sure we’re playing both sides of the spectrum.”

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