02/18/2024
This is long, but very important so I kindly ask you to read it in its entirety.
What is bodywork?
This term came up recently in a news interview with our mayor. He used the term to refer to persons who offer illicit services and this is wholly incorrect and potentially damaging to folks like myself who use this term in our business name and marketing.
This is what bodywork means:
Bodywork therapy is a broad term that encompasses a variety of techniques designed to manipulate the soft tissues of the body. It is an umbrella term, representing many modalities that each therapist chooses to train in and offer.
As a massage PROFESSIONAL I work hard to offer healing and therapeutic services. I have NEVER used my skills for any other purpose and have always followed the law. I am a Christian and the very thought that my practice could be associated in any manner with what these “businesses” sickens me.
Recent events have shown me and many other LMTS in this area that there is a lot of work that needs to be done to educate people in city leadership about our profession. Namely, there needs to be a lot of conversations about the regulations we already operate under and how the state has already defined how we do business. We are not the problem. And we should not have to be made to be part of the solution by having to be regulated by bureaucratic overreach.
We are educated, trained and ethical.
And we will be heard.
If you glean from this post that I am upset, then I’ve conveyed it properly. A new ordinance was passed last October that would have a massive impact on my business. An ordinance, by the way, that no lmts in this area were notified about in advance of the vote to pass it. Nor were we notified when it was to be put into effect. An ordinance that directly impacts our daily working process and how we run our businesses. Not a peep.
If you’re curious, here is the ordinance:https://abc7amarillo.com/resources/pdf/92b0a022-2412-48ad-8683-7517ed142d8e-massageestablishmentordinance.pdf
After meeting with one of the council members yesterday, we were relieved to learn it is being put on hold until the ordinance can be reevaluated and revamped.
We now have to participate in the rewriting of this ordinance whose sole purpose is to get these illicit businesses out of our city. I am totally on board with finding a solution to this issue because we have all been fighting the battle of clearly differentiating ourselves from them for years. But part of me asks why am I being forced to help solve a problem I didn’t create?
But, here we are.
My heart breaks for the thought of the women involved who are very likely being trafficked. But my livelihood should not be placed under extreme scrutiny and the exceptional inconvenience this ordinance would have placed us under had it moved forward.
Can you as my clients imagine being in the midst of a massage and having it interrupted with a surprise inspection?!? Absolutely a mortifying prospect.
For now, this is on hold. I will update when I know more.