City's 'hooker' massage parlors may get a not-so-happy ending - New York Post

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A state lawmaker from Queens is trying to close the curtain on happy-ending massage parlors with a bill requiring spas to register with the state to weed out those that are fronts for prostitution, The Post has learned.

Unlike nail salons, hair salons and other such businesses, massage parlors don’t require a state license to operate, making it easier for them to sell sex behind the curtain, State Sen. José Peralta told The Post.

“The current laws governing the practice of massage therapy have allowed establishments that are committing illicit activities to proliferate,” Peralta said.

The bill, filed Oct. 13, would require massage-therapy businesses to register with the Department of State and apply for a special, four-year license that would allow consumers and the state alike to know which businesses are legitimate.

Massage-parlor owners who fail to get a license could face up to six months in jail and a $2,500 fine.

Peralta said the Roosevelt Avenue section of Jackson Heights and Corona, Queens, is a hub for happy-ending massage parlors whose neon signs burn late into the night.

“I don’t know who gets their nails done at 1 a.m. Who gets massages at 1 a.m.?” Peralta said. “Something fishy is happening at that late of an hour.”

The Post counted at least 20 various types of beauty and spa parlors on or near Roosevelt Avenue between 71st Street and Junction Boulevard.

“You walk by these places and they have lookouts who say, ‘ Massage, massage, massage, come upstairs,’ ” Peralta said. “We need to regulate these businesses.”

The Post recently visited a few locations that had been flagged for nefarious activity, and they’re well known to residents in the neighborhood.

“It’s a whorehouse . . . straight up,” a man who lives next to one of the shops told The Post. “They also do other stuff, like fake IDs.”

Susan Liu, the Associate Director of Women’s Services at Garden of Hope New York, a group for victims of sexual assault, told The Post many of the women working as prostitutes in these parlors are from foreign countries, and are lured here with the promise of money and opportunity.

“Some of them were told they could find work in America through a travel agent and then when they landed in, say, JFK, sometimes they would send a driver to pick these ladies up and they would drive them either to massage parlors or in an apartment or a motel to provide services,” Liu said.

Many of them don’t realize they’re in a trafficking situation, she added.

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