GREENBURGH, N.Y. -- The Greenburgh Town Board has called a special meeting for 11 a.m. Tuesday to introduce a local law regulating "massage establishments."
The town action comes as two new massage parlors announced "grand openings" along Central Avenue in the Edgemont section of Greenburgh in recent days.
On its website, Edgemont Community Cares linked to a backpage advertisement of local massage parlors -- promoting a $60-an-hour special.
Massage parlors with newly advertised specials are located at 455 Central Ave. -- across the street from Greenburgh Nature Center -- and at 114 S. Central Ave. Both ads featured photos of young scantily clad Asian women. One ad reads, "Our massasuer are professional and down to earth. That parlor offered a "nice, pretty Korean/Japanese girl. . . I promise that you will have special time in here." The other ad offered "Wow-heavenly feel Japanese Korean Chinese Massage" that will "leave you extra relaxed."
Ads on backpage.com Sunday also promoted massage parlors at 390, 698 and 791 Central Park Ave. as well as at 100 N. Central Ave., all within the Town of Greenburgh.
The Edgemont Community Council (ECC), a neighborhood group, drafted proposed legislation for Town of Greenburgh officials to consider adopting last week. The group seeks to ban massage parlors.
On Sunday, Greenburgh Supervisor Paul Feiner said the 19-page local law is expected to be formally introduced at Tuesday's special meeting. Feiner said it's possible that ECC President Bob Bernstein -- an attorney who drafted the original proposed local law for the town -- "will want to make some minor changes in the legislation."
"The goal of the legislation is to regulate massage businesses, not to ban them,'' Feiner said. "We don't want these facilities to be involved in improper business (prostitution). . . .Some of the massage businesses are legitimate -- others have been shut down in the past, and then they re-open. I anticipate that the Town Board will be supportive."
New massage parlor ads, published online over the weekend, came after the town failed to introduce or adopt legislation to outlaw all brothels fronting as massage parlors in unincorporated Greenburgh at the Town Board's Jan. 14 meeting.
ECC's draft proposal would give Greenburgh police authority to shut down houses of prostitution acting as "massage parlors" by requiring that all such facilities obtain licenses from the Greenburgh Town Clerk and special permits from the Town Board, and permanently closing down all such facilities that don't have them.
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