Newport Bans New Tanning Salons to Fight Prostitution

NEWPORT BEACH —  New tanning salons will not be allowed in Newport Beach under an emergency ordinance approved by the City Council on Monday in an effort to curb prostitution.

The ordinance was passed unanimously and without discussion.

Earlier this year, the council also banned new massage parlors from the city. About half of those were fronts for prostitution, police said. That ban caused prostitutes to seek other businesses for covers, officials said.

Some tanning shop owners agreed that prostitutes using tanning salons were ruining the industry’s reputation.

At a study session Monday, Councilwoman R. Evelyn Hart said she would rather approve an ordinance that eliminated prostitution fronts “without getting into the legitimate parlors that are really doing what they’re supposed to be doing.”

However, City Atty. Robert Burnham said it would be difficult to draw up a comprehensive ordinance, and the stop-gap measures will solve the problem in the meantime.

“I think we should do it as they come up,” he said.

The new moratorium comes in response to an application for a tanning salon that would also offer a live lingerie show, and city officials wanted more time to investigate the business’s operations.

Tanning parlor operators have criticized the ordinance, saying it would not solve the prostitution problem but merely shift it to the next business cover. They added that they did not want to see their businesses suffer the same unfavorable attention that massage shops received when their industry was targeted as a prostitution front.