An Outer Richmond "Health Center" that officials say is a front for the sex trade will have to face those allegations in court, after the San Francisco City Attorney's Office filed a suit asking demanding to shut the business down and sell its fixtures at auction.
According to SF City Attorney Dennis Herrera, the Paradise Health Center (located on 242 Balboa Street between Third and Fourth Avenues) has been "operating a covert brothel...for years."
Yelp reviews dating back to 2015 claim the place is a front of sex work, as does a comment posted to the Richmond District blog in 2014.
And this is certainly not the first time Paradise Health Center has been under city scrutiny. As the Richmond District blog reports
On May 10, 2016 at around 9pm, members of the Mayor’s Task Force on Anti-Human Trafficking and the SFPD paid a visit to the Paradise for a surprise inspection.What they found was one of the female practitioners, “CoCo”, completely nude and engaged in a lewd act with a male client, also nude. According to the report, “the practitioner was straddling her customer and it clearly appeared they were engaged in a sex act”.
The venue was "fined $1,000 for the incident and in November 2016, was forced to close for 60 days when their massage establishment permit was suspended." Following that suspension, the business reopened, and Herrera says "the illicit activity started right back up."
Hence Herrera's lawsuit, filed Monday in SF court (I uploaded the full complaint so you can read it here). In it, he argues that since 2012, Paradise "has solicited prostitution through advertisements on backpage.com and other sources notorious for soliciting erotic services," with ads running as recently as September 29 of this year.
Naming owners Tian Yi Zhao and Chiu Hung Paul Tam; the family trust that owns the property; and its trustee, Lisa Tang, the suit "alleges that the defendants are in violation of the California Red Light Abatement Law (Penal Code sections 11225-11235) and have engaged in unfair and unlawful business practices."
In addition, Herrera says that they "maintained security cameras outside, locked the front entrance during business hours and used a buzzer system to control entry" in an effort to disguise their activities. All these tactics are violations of SF's Planning and Health Codes.
In the suit, Herrera asks that the court to:
- Close the business for a year
- Sell the business’ fixtures and movable property at auction, with proceeds going to fund enforcement
- Grant a preliminary and permanent injunction prohibiting the property from being used as a massage establishment and the owners from operating one
- Levy monetary penalties against the property owner and business owner. Those penalties include up to $25,000 for allowing prostitution to occur on the premises; at least $200 for each day in violation of the Planning Code; and $2,500 for each unlawful business act.
“The Department of Public Health gave notice that this had to stop but were ignored," Herrera says. "Paradise and its landlord have no respect for the law or this community, and they have made a business out of exploiting women. With this lawsuit I aim to shutter them once and for all, and to hold this business and this landlord responsible."
Detail of Exhibit B in the legal complaint against Paradise Health Center
