Tulsa Police worry undercover prostitution investigations will be hampered by a new state massage licensing law.
When the law goes into effect next month, Tulsa’s massage ordinance will be invalidated. The 4-year-old ordinance requires businesses to be licensed, keep a customer log and make sure its employees are licensed. Police said it helps them go after businesses serving as fronts for prostitution.
"The new act has absolutely no effect on the city's ordinances that prohibit procuring, soliciting or engaging in prostitution; lewdness; body houses; indecent exposure; outraging public decency; or the enforcement of those ordinances," said City Attorney David O'Meilia.
TPD Sgt. Todd Evans said when the law takes effect, they’ll have to make misdemeanor arrests rather than just issue citations.
"That misdemeanor crime is going to be prosecuted by the district attorney's office, who, their money and their emphasis is on murders and robberies and rapes and those types of crimes," Evans said. "I don't think we're going to be as effective on a state level doing that as we have been."
O’Meilia said although the law takes certain tools away from local law enforcement, there is a bright side.
"The license they have to obtain from the state is far more strict than the licensing our current massage business ordinance requires," O'Meilia said.
The new state law puts massage therapist licensing under the Oklahoma State Board of Cosmetology and Barbering.
