For City Council Meeting March 24, 2026
TO: Honorable Mayor and City Council
FROM: Tanya Williams, City Manager
AUTHOR: Mark P. Kling, Chief of Police
Title
Adopt Urgency Ordinance No. 1712, Entitled, "An Interim Urgency Ordinance of the City Council of the City of Rialto, California, Declaring a Temporary Moratorium on the Establishment, Expansion, or Intensification of Massage Parlors Within the Jurisdictional Boundaries of the City of Rialto and Finding that Said Action is Exempt from CEQA."
(ACTION)
Body
RECOMMENDATION
Staff recommends that the City Council consider and adopt Urgency Ordinance.
BACKGROUND
In recent years, Rialto Police Department personnel have discovered evidence of illicit sexual activity occurring at massage establishments, which are referenced as "massage parlors" under the Rialto Municipal Code, in the City of Rialto ("City"). These activities create significant impacts to public health, safety, and welfare. To prevent further growth of this criminal trend, an urgency ordinance is proposed to temporarily prohibit the processing of use permits for new, expanded, or intensified massage parlors throughout the City. The proposed ordinance would prohibit new massage parlor applicants from obtaining the required licenses to open a new business within the City, and existing massage parlors would be prohibited from expanding or otherwise intensifying their existing use. The urgency ordinance is necessary to provide the City with sufficient time to study and propose updated municipal and zoning code regulations to effectively regulate massage parlors and mitigate the negative impacts of illegal activity associated with insufficiently regulated massage parlors.
ANALYSIS/DISCUSSION
Massage parlors that engage in illicit sexual activity pose an immediate and significant threat to the health, safety, and welfare of the community. Among other things, these impacts include the potential for: (1) injury and abuse to patrons being solicited f...
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