Borough Revokes Permits for Embattled Salon; Property Near Foreclosure

Pending a judicial hearing, the borough of Collingswood has revoked the zoning permit approval and certificate of operation for Zheng Salon, .

The property itself is also in danger of foreclosure, according to borough zoning and code enforcement officer Mary Ellen Ries.

“I believe it’s soon to be turned over to the bank,” she said.

Ries provided a brief history of the various businesses that have existed at the 721 Haddon Ave. location since the beginning of her tenure. The timeline she offered was consistent with that provided by previous tenants.

The current owner of record of the building is “SJE Holdings, LLC,” which Ries identified as a husband-and-wife entrepreneurship that purchased the building in October 2005. In 2009, SJE Holdings leased the first-floor storefront to Steven Suplee and Weizhen Qui, the proprietors of Zhen Salon in Haddonfield and Wildwood. Suplee and Qui received a special zoning permit to provide healing massage at the location in December 2009.

“Since massage is not a permitted use of the borough, it has to go before the Zoning Board, which is the organization that can grant exceptions to the ordinances,” Ries said.

Suplee and Qui “gave extensive testimony as to the type of massage they were going to do there [as Zhen Salon],” and the Collingswood Zoning Board granted them a variance to provide therapeutic/healing massage, Ries said.

When the couple sold Zhen Salon in 2010, the new tenant was then obligated to apply for a new zoning permit and certificate of operation because her stated use of the facility was slightly different from that of the previous owners: It included a clause for the provision of acupuncture and other spa services.

According to Ries, the new permit was issued to a woman named Guoxi Rao in July 2010. At the time of publication, Rao has not been named in any complaint associated with the Wednesday arrest of Rong Chen at Zheng Salon. , Suplee identified Chen as the woman to whom he and Qui had sold their business. Efforts to reach Suplee for additional comment were unsuccessful; the number for Zhen Salon in Haddonfield is now listed as non-working.

“[Rao] applied for the zoning permit approval to operate the business there,” Ries said. “It was called Zhen before; they added a ‘g’ on the end. She told me she bought the business; I don’t have any information whether she sub-leased it.”

The zoning permit was issued to Rao upon the condition that she comply with the terms of the variance that the prior owners had received, Ries said. Since the business allegedly has violated the terms of that permit, she said, the borough has withdrawn its approval “pending disbursement of the charges.”

“We’re pretty careful and try to have things on the up and up,” Ries said. “Obviously, if they are convicted, they have not complied with the variance.

“We certainly don’t want this,” she said.

Even if the salon is cleared of the charges levied against it, Ries said, the borough could still decide not to reinstate its zoning variance, although there is no precedent either way.

“This is not something that’s ever happened before,” she said. “We’re going to see how the adjudication of the case goes. There also may be at that point a turnover of the building" if it is foreclosed upon.

“At this point, we’ve got to see what happens in court,” Ries said.