Over half of Saint Charles massage establishments forced to stop operations

Over half of the businesses in St. Charles with state-licensed massage therapists were recently forced to stop seeing their massage patients — some losing roughly 10% of their annual income — after the City suddenly began enforcing a decades-old, selectively-enforced massage establishment code.

My name is Tracy Heilers. I'm a state-licensed, sole proprietor massage therapist here in St. Charles, and I've given public comments at the last five City Council meetings about this code's discriminatory treatment of our profession. The code aims to deter and aid in the prosecution of prostitution and trafficking — crimes that extend far beyond our profession, and ones we should be combating with taxpayer funding, not by charging innocent, state-licensed health professionals to help foot the bill.

I pay the City a $250 flat fee to apply for and renew my license — $5,000 over a 20-year career, roughly 1% of my income, a month's office rent, and triple what I pay to renew my state license. That's an inequitable fee that falls hardest on the smallest, most vulnerable operators.

I'm one of 11 licensed massage establishments in St. Charles — 4 of us sole proprietors. My research found 19 more operating unknowingly without a license: 10 sole proprietors and 9 doctor's-office practices with massage therapists. I shared this data in my public comments for one reason: to argue these groups should be exempt from a code that crime statistics — and the City's own decades of inaction — show was never really about them.

At this past Monday's meetings, I learned the City police had already contacted most of these unlicensed businesses to enforce compliance — during the very same window the Council was hearing my concerns and deciding to move to a discussion phase. By the end of that meeting, the Council appeared to be moving toward a fairer, general business license model. But in the meantime, real damage has already been done: these small businesses had to halt providing their massage-based care, including to veterans and elderly community members managing chronic pain, while going through a 4-6 week application process.

Charging them a $250 fee that may soon be reduced or eliminated is unfair enough — but forcing health providers to take a massive financial hit to their ability to pay bills, while cutting off patients from care they depend on, is a far more serious harm. I feel a real sense of responsibility here, since this happened as a direct result of my own advocacy.

If you value and respect massage therapy as health care, I kindly ask that you contact your alderperson and/or City leadership and ask that these businesses be allowed to resume care immediately.

For more detail — including my five key concerns and five proposed code amendments — here's the Google doc I've shared with the Council (a link to all my public comments is at the top). https://docs.google.com/.../1u9QX6wCixaKklVqGwgHW.../edit...

I'd love for you to join me in sharing your thoughts through public comment at the next City Council meeting: Monday, October 5 at 7 PM.