The Metropolis of Richmond proposes ramping up bylaw enforcement on physique rub parlours that might see the companies’ licences suspended or revoked.
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A employees report going earlier than the Metropolis of Richmond’s public security committee this week is recommending harsher penalties towards physique rub parlours for bylaw infractions.
One metropolis councillor who helps the crackdown says he’s involved the companies could possibly be fronts for human trafficking. However a critic says elevated enforcement may have the impact of scaring staff into extra harmful places.
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At the moment, parlours can face fines of as much as $1,000 for bylaw infractions. A report from Mark Corrado, the town’s bylaw and licensing director, and Edward Warzel, supervisor of police providers, proposes ramping up penalties to permit for steeper fines, in addition to licence suspensions or revocations. There are at present six licensed physique rub parlours within the metropolis, in line with the employees report.
The employees report was a response to a movement put ahead by Coun. Kash Heed at a gathering of the general public security committee final November throughout which he stated these companies had been probably “avenues which are used for human trafficking.”
“We’ve acquired an unbelievable market, sadly in Richmond, and a requirement for the providers of sex-trade staff,” he stated.
“I believe it’s incumbent on us … we take a powerful stand towards this.”
Angela Wu, government director of the Vancouver-based non-profit Swan, which helps migrant and immigrant girls engaged in indoor intercourse work, disagrees.
“For months, girls engaged in intercourse work in Richmond have been topic to bylaw raids. … It has sarcastically pushed staff into areas the place there’s a higher threat of exploitation and violence the town claims it needs to deal with,” Wu stated in a press release posted to social media this previous week.
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“The report going earlier than the committee subsequent week is stuffed with misinformation and an irresponsible conflation of exploitation, trafficking and intercourse work,” Wu stated.
Authorities ought to as a substitute take a “compassionate” strategy to bylaw enforcement “so (intercourse) staff really feel protected calling police when they’re victims of a criminal offense.”
However Heed, a former police chief and B.C. solicitor normal, says Richmond is “not trying to goal the ladies who work within the parlours, however the unsavoury characters who’re turning a revenue by exploiting them.”
Heed pointed to alleged prison connections in at the least one licensed physique rub parlour, Water Dice spa. It beforehand operated contained in the Radisson Resort and was run by alleged cash launderer Paul Jin, who was shot lifeless at an area Japanese restaurant within the fall of 2020.
“Bylaws are what the town has inside its energy to cope with this downside,” Heed stated.
Whereas therapeutic massage parlours are authorized in Canada, buying intercourse work is banned. Since 2000, Richmond bylaws have prohibited physique rub parlours from working previous midnight, from utilizing locks on room doorways and obstructing room home windows, and employees from sporting outer clothes that don’t cowl the world between their neck and knee.
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Prior to now six months, Richmond bylaw officers have issued 13 tickets for non-compliance to licensed parlour operators, in line with the employees report. The newest operation, carried out on Jan. 12 by bylaw and RCMP officers, investigated all six physique rub institutions. Whereas they discovered bylaw violations and handed out eight tickets for non-compliance, no prison exercise was cited.
Investigating unlawful intercourse work enterprises stays a priority for Richmond RCMP, in line with the report, “as a result of potential nexus to sexual assault, human trafficking, organized crime and youngster or youth sexual exploitation.”
The report outlines three circumstances over the previous 5 years in Richmond involving suspected human trafficking, together with one in 2019 the place a intercourse employee instructed police they had been assaulted, their actions had been being managed and so they had been pressured to have intercourse with “a number of purchasers a day.” The case ended with one particular person being convicted of assault and uttering threats,” the RCMP stated.
Not one of the circumstances talked about within the report had been linked to any of the six licensed physique rub parlours in Richmond.
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Richmond RCMP on Saturday stated they weren’t in a position to present a remark.
With recordsdata from Kim Bolan and Douglas Quan
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