Massage Parlor Owner to Fight Closure Order : Law enforcement: A spokesman denies allegations that it’s a house of prostitution. Residents call it a blot on the community.
Assailed by police who call it a prosperous house of prostitution, by angry residents who call it a blot on their otherwise wholesome community and by city officials who say it is too close to residential property, the International House of Massage in Westchester has been ordered by the city to close within 30 days.
But residents are not holding their breath. The business has been ordered to close before.
“If you get one of these places in your neighborhood, it’s very difficult to get rid of it,†said Shirley Pfeil, a former honorary mayor of Westchester and longtime opponent of the parlor. “They’ve got the money to fight it.â€
And fight it they will.
Jeffrey Douglas, a lawyer who represents the owner of the massage parlor, said last week that he is “pursuing administrative remedies†against the city order.
He also denied persistent allegations of prostitution at the business, where masseuses deal only in “legally innocent fantasy,†he said.
They may soon be dealing with a legal reality as well.
The order to close was mailed late last week by the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety after a three-week clerical mix-up. The business is apparently in violation of the city’s Adult Entertainment Ordinance, which bans adult businesses within 500 feet of residential property.
The parlor, an unassuming 21-year-old business, is housed in a building with brown wood siding and no windows that sits slightly more than 460 feet from the Westchester Branch Library, according to a senior building inspector for the city.
It is also within 500 feet of the northwest corner of Lot C, a massive 8,475-space parking facility at Los Angeles International Airport.
The lot and the library are zoned as residential.
Douglas will use that fact in his argument against the city order.
“It’s asinine, it’s ludicrous to say that Lot C is a sensitive use,†Douglas said.
As for the library, he contends that it is 520 feet from the parlor, depending on how the distance is measured.
The massage parlor was first ordered to close in March. The order was blocked when the owner tried to get a change-of-use permit to operate as a nude dance cabaret.
The permit was rejected after Westchester residents reacted en masse, signing petitions, writing letters to City Hall and packing a city Board of Zoning Appeals hearing to voice their objections.
Fueling the community outrage were allegations of prostitution. Police say there have been a number of arrests at the business.
Lt. Les Coil of the Los Angeles Police Department’s administrative vice division, said the parlor continues to harbor illegal activity.
“They’re a house of prostitution,†he said. “It has a good reputation. It’s one of the busiest places in Los Angeles.â€
But Lou Olivia, manager of the massage parlor, said he goes to great lengths to run a clean business, including making the masseuses wear tape recorders to protect them against allegations of solicitation.
Before the appeal for conversion to a cabaret, the massage parlor generated relatively little attention from the community at large.
“I had people say to me, ‘I never knew there was a massage parlor,’ †said Edris Newton, senior librarian at the library.
Still, the proximity of the establishment to a library, a Montessori school and an apartment complex proved worrisome to many in the community, which prides itself on its healthy family environment and for maintaining property values in the shadow of an international airport.
“The community would just as soon see it go,†said Judy Nutter, an aide to City Councilman Ruth Galanter.
Douglas dismissed the concerns, saying “there’s no place better to have an adult business than by the airport.â€
He also chided community leaders for taking so prim a position on a business whose clients he said consist not only of out-of-towners passing through the airport, but Westchester residents as well.
“People are offended by the idea that people are sexually fantasizing out there in the world,†Douglas said.
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