Prostitution Charge Sparks Push for New Massage Parlor License

On Tuesday night, Hopkins City Council members will be discussing the possibility of strict new licensing procedures for massage parlors. Why are massage parlors suddenly in the city’s sights? One word: Prostitution.

The issue arose after police charged a masseuse at Hopkins Asian Massage, at 1209 Mainstreet, with prostitution following an undercover sting. The business itself has not been charged with criminal activity. However, Hopkins officials want to make it harder for massage parlors to resume operations in the event such activity takes place on their premises.

Employees at Hopkins Asian Massage told Patch that the owner was not immediately available for comment.

learned in early August that Hopkins Asian Massage had been rated on a prostitution-review site called Rub Maps, a Hopkins officer wrote in the charging document.

Reviews there described sexual activity between three different masseuses. An investigator’s query on Adult Search turned up a further review that said Hopkins Asian Massage had been used for prostitution, the officer noted.

The department got a search warrant and arranged for an undercover Plymouth officer to try to buy sexual services from the parlor. On Aug. 24, the undercover officer made an appointment with “Li Li”—one of the masseuses named in the review and later identified as 53-year-old Cuihua Chen.

The officer gave her $100 in prerecorded money for the $70 massage, according to the charging documents. Partway through the massage, she touched the officer’s privates and “began to manually stimulate it," the Hopkins officer wrote. The Plymouth officer asked if that would cost extra. When she nodded her head, “Yes,” the undercover officer called other officers in the waiting area and told them to arrest Chen.

The Hopkins officer interviewed Chen through a Mandarin Chinese interpreter after ascertaining that English was not her first language. She was later charged with misdemeanor prostitution in a public place.

Chen’s court case is still pending. But her arrest didn’t keep the business closed for long. It reopened soon afterward with new masseuses and, as noted earlier, is still listed on questionable websites—although one three-time customer complained that the masseuses told him the sexual activity he wanted was “illegal.”

The reason Hopkins didn’t have any ability to close the business is because it licenses individual masseuses, not entire massage parlors. Because there was no license in the first place, Hopkins couldn’t close the business by revoking a license. All the business needed to do was find new licensed masseuses.

City staff have suggested creating a new massage parlor license and a procedure for suspending, revoking or denying that license—a topic the council will take up Tuesday.

In the meantime, Hopkins Asian Massage remains open for business.