Police shutter illegal massage parlors - again - Ct Post

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BRIDGEPORT - The cat and mouse game between police and the city's illegal massage parlors over suspected prostitution resumed over the holiday weekend.
Officers Saturday reinspected ten parlors shut down before Christmas for violating massage establishment regulations and found four back in business.
"These establishments were closed and put on notice arrests would follow if they illegally reopened," Police Chief Joseph Gaudet said in a statement. "Some didn't heed our warnings and employees got predictable results."
This was the second time two locations -- Kay's Hong Kong at 604 North Ave. and Chateau Health Spa at 2662 Fairfield Ave. -- flouted the law since the late December raids. Both sites had been revisited by police Jan. 3 and shuttered.
"I think they just want to see what they could get away with ... They'll close eventually," said state Rep. Auden Grogins, D-129, who has been involved in spearheading the city's crackdown on illegal adult businesses.
Grogins praised the police department for using tougher city and state health and licensing regulations to weed out the alleged brothels from legitimate masseuses.
Saturday's police visits came several hours after a Hearst Newspapers reporter found two previously closed spas -- Chateau and Silver at 2742 Fairfield Ave. -- opening their doors to customers Friday night in time for the long weekend.
Police Saturday shut down Chateau, Silver, Kay's and Oriental Health Spa at 2336 Main St. and arrested seven women.
"Two officers went into the establishments and were propositioned for massages," said police spokesman William Kaempffer.
Kaempffer said some condoms were found, but, unlike the Jan. 3 raids, no customers.
Gaudet said the spas will remain a priority for his department.
State Rep. Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, who like Grogins has fought for tougher restrictions on illegitimate massage businesses, said it can take time to drive them out of a municipality.
"Most of these women are trafficked. They get arrested, get out of jail, go someplace else -- another state. (The spa owners) get other women in here," Duff said.
The identities of the 7 women arrested in Bridgeport Saturday were not immediately available.
In Norwalk a combination of police vigilance and shaming the landlords worked, Duff said.
Some of the Bridgeport spa landlords are from out of state, while others are well known in the community. Developer Sal Dinardo of Fairfield owns the building at 536 Lindley St. housing Fantasy Studio, which police closed in December.
"I knew something was there but I didn't know what it was," DiNardo said in a recent interview.
And Michael Brennan -- owner of Brennan's Shebeen bar in Black Rock -- is landlord for repeat offenders Chateau and Silver.
Brennan could not be reached Monday.
If the Bridgeport spas continue to push back against police enforcement, the city's health department could go to court to force them to stay closed.
Grogins is also pursuing legislation in Hartford to expand a nuisance abatement law state prosecutors can use to close businesses repeatedly found to operate illegal activities. She wants the list of offenses to include violations of a municipal ordinance.
brian.lockhart@scni.com; 203-414-0712; http://twitter.com/blockhart1