SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) -Local spa owners are pushing for change just over a week after the tragic events in Atlanta that left eight people dead.
Ed Griffin-Nolan, owner of The Spa at 500, wants to see law enforcement officers in Central New York and around the state to enforce massage therapy more strictly.
“For 50 years, the state of New York has required anyone that is performing any massage services to be licensed and go to school,” Griffin-Nolan said. “It ensures the safety of the public. For decades we’ve been advocating law enforcement to step up.”
With stricter enforcement, not only does the practice provide public confidence, but it also holds massage therapy locations accountable. Six of the eight deaths in Atlanta were Asian-American Women. In addition to the targeted attacks on the Asian-American community, massage businesses have acquired a negative association with sex trafficking and prostitution. According to the New York Times, experts say there are more than 9,000 massage locations are fronts for such sex work.
Finding out with massage locations are licensed or not could be a major factor in bringing these problems to light and in clearing up the negative press massage businesses are receiving according to Griffin-Nolan.
“If law enforcement finds that you don’t have a license, you should be done and that place should closed,” Griffin-Nolan said. “Not only could it help solve some of these problems, but it also keeps people safe.”
Griffin-Nolan, and two other licensed massage therapists in the Syracuse area, wrote a letter in Syracuse.com that detailed these concerning trends within the massage therapy industry.
“It was an elegy to the woman and the other practitioners who lost their lives,” Griffin-Nolan said. “It was also an appeal to the community to not discriminate inward or outward to people of Asian descent and to not patronize places of massage service.”
In light of these troubling events, Griffin-Nolan wants massage businesses, like The Spa at 500, to be a safe place for people of all different backgrounds and the push for stricter legislation is one step in achieving that goal.
“Spas are meant to be a place of healing and that what we try to provide,” Griffin-Nolan said.
