Report recommends police approval, limited operating hours for licensed Regina body rub parlours

A report to the City of Regina's executive committee is recommending that licensing requirements for body rub parlours include reporting, a limitation on operating hours and approval from the Regina Police Service.

The mandatory licence would cost $100 per year. The owner/operator of any body rub parlour or establishment — referred to as BREs in the report, which was presented to the city committee on Wednesday — would also be required to pay $630 per year to offset a portion of the costs incurred by the police service.

The licensing requirements for workers and establishments would include proof of identification and age, along with proof of completion of an education program, a criminal record check and an interview with an RPS officer before approval is granted.

The report notes that licensing both the owner/operator and the workers is the most common approach, but says that "was not administration's recommended approach," because during an engagement process, workers had raised concerns about their names being included on the licence documents.

Names of licensed workers would also be fair game under access to information requests under the province's privacy legislation, which includes the scope of police services.

As an alternative to licensing workers, the report suggests owner/operators collect and verify information from workers and provide it to the City of Regina, upon request.

It also recommends that patrons be required to provide ID as proof of age when patronizing the parlours, and that licensing ban operation of parlours between 2 a.m. and 10 a.m.

The estimated annual costs of the program would be between $52,287 and $115,000, depending on the number of body rub parlours operating and licensed. The report says the city chose not to implement the licensing regime on a full cost recovery basis, because it would be cost prohibitive.

If there were five body rub parlours operating in Regina under the licensing regime, they would have to collectively pay $8,715 to recover costs of enforcement.

That drops to $5,750 if there were 20 body rub parlours.

"These costs relate only to licensing and enforcement of new BRE that will begin operation under the new framework and does not include enforcement or legal costs to close operations currently in violation of The Zoning Bylaw," the report reads.

City councillors previously amended a zoning bylaw in April that restricted body rub parlours to industrial zones.

The members of the executive committee spent several hours discussing the report Wednesday afternoon, but eventually the meeting was adjourned without a decision.

No date has yet been set for the committee to revisit the report.