DAYTON — A onetime massage businesses is closed, with no lights on but just one word left on the window: spa.
In a shopping plaza with a sandwich shop, Chinese restaurant and paint store, this is how the former Asian Hawaii Massage in the 2900 block of Linden Avenue looked on Wednesday, the day its manager was indicted for promoting prostitution for operating a brothel, according to a Montgomery County grand jury report.
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Haiyan Wang, 45, is not in custody but was issued a summons to appear Jan. 7 for her arraignment in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court.
Prosecutors did not release specifics about the charges on Wednesday, aside from saying the business offered more than just massages.
“Of course that’s bad, that’s bad,” said Adam Latif, owner of a business two doors down who said he had heard rumors about the spa.
“You hear bad things like sexual something, ... they do something after the massage, I don’t know,” he said.
News Center 7 has reported on similar allegations at spa businesses several times. Most recently, a bust in Fairborn in October; in Piqua earlier this year and in Miami Twp. last year.
“They’re fronts for sexual services, human trafficking,” medical massage industry expert Jennifer Cull said of the massage businesses.
Kettering City Council on Tuesday passed a law “needed to prevent human trafficking at massage establishments,” the ordinance read.
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The law requires a license for anyone to practice massage in Kettering.
Cull said cities across Ohio have similar laws on the books.
“They don’t want these sex businesses. They don’t want it in the city. We don’t want it in the state of Ohio.”
Meanwhile, Latif said he was glad to see the spa gone.
“It’s good for the plaza,” he said.
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There’s a bill in the state senate aiming to do something similar to Kettering’s law by requiring a license to practice massage, and to apply it statewide. However, it’s been sitting in a committee since March.
