Update, Correction and Apology

Between all this talk about crackdowns and raids, Audrey decided to close The Business for Saturday and Sunday.

Well, to be more truthful, it was between all those Halloween parties that we closed up shop. Trina and I had way too much to do this weekend with all the costume shopping and beer runs and whatnot in preparation for a weekend of Halloween festivities. Cindy was willing to work, but both Audrey and I agree that she wouldn't know she was servicing a cop even if were in full uniform, with a badge and carrying a video camera. "And I thought he was doing a role play..."

You know who did work this weekend? Maude - Audrey's dull sister. Let me tell ya something, that bitch takes her job seriously. I mean, she came in, worked the phones, and told anyone who called that we were unavailable. AND she cleaned the place from top to bottom! Personality of wallpaper, but a good worker.

Looks like we didn't miss much since there was no more news on raids this past weekend. Let's cross our fingers and see if the interest in parlors ends today.

Now I'd like to take the opportunity to apologize about my comment the other day about the clientele of full service parlors.

What I was trying to say is that WHEN a parlor's customers change over to drug dealers and criminals, that it will attract too much attention and eventually get taken down. That's what happened to a couple of places around here a few years back. I was not trying to say that EVERY full service place is patronized exclusively by pimps and dealers (however, I do have a funny story regarding that which I'll share later). The point I was trying (poorly) to make is that a parlor's worst enemy is attention of any kind.

There are 2 kinds of attention: cops and neighbors. The current crackdown is based on the attention from neighbors. A national organization fighting human trafficking has teamed up with local religious groups to identify and investigate suspicious parlors in the area (yes - I read the paper too). And I'm sure many businesses in the Delaware Valley ended up on a list of some kind that they turned over to the feds/townships/police/etc.

And this leads to the other kind of attention: cops. This is the really bad kind of attention because unlike neighbors, cops can shut you down. And cops HAVE to investigate if there's been a complaint. So after everything was said and done, they shut down about 20 Asian massage parlors and 2 American ones. My guess is that the American ones got thrown in there because they were just waaaaay to obvious to ignore.

And this is why I made that bad example of how a parlor can call attention to itself by its customers. Actually a very successful parlor (whether full service or not) will have an incredibly dull clientele. And that's the kind of business you want - not politicians, celebrities, or criminals. Sure, they may be more interesting and have more money to throw around, but there's either a reporter or a cop who followed them here taking pictures and writing down license plate numbers. No thank you.

So my apologies to my fellow masseuses out there if I offended anyone. And you full service fans - sorry if I lumped you in with the "wrong" crowd.

CJ