Massage World in St. Charles cited for violations

The St. Charles Liquor Control Commission is considering what action to take against Massage World for several violations of the city’s massage license code that took place in November.

Those violations include touching or fondling a sexual or genital area of another person; not covering the sexual or genital area with a towel or cloth; knowingly exposing or failing to cover the sexual or genital areas and performing a massage without a license.

St. Charles Mayor Lora Vitek also acts as the city’s liquor commissioner. During a hearing on Wednesday, Vitek and other members of the St. Charles Liquor Control Commission heard from the attorney for Massage World owner Jun Sellers. Sellers has already pleaded guilty to the city for the violations.

Attorney Peter Buh said that the owner did not know the person – who is not a licensed massage therapist – was going to be at the business that day. Sellers was not at the business when the violations occurred at approximately 12:51 p.m. Nov. 19.

“My client immediately contacted that person and said she is not allowed to step inside that business at all and that she has no business being there,” he told commissioners.

Sellers also told the employees working that day and she informed them in a memo that if something like that ever happened again – where they allow an unlicensed therapist who is not registered with St. Charles to work at Massage World – that they would be immediately terminated.

“She is clearly trying to take responsibility for what occurred,” Buh said. “It happened, it was a mistake, we accept the responsibility and what we want to do is we want to show the city of St. Charles that we learn from our mistakes and we will make sure this won’t happen again.”

He noted that Massage World has been in business for 10 years. In 2016, Massage World’s license was suspended for seven days and it had to pay $1,500 in fines and fees for operating after hours and not having a manager on site.

“Other than that, they’ve had no issues with St. Charles,” Buh said. “They’ve had no issues with their license, they’ve had no issues with the police.”

He also noted that Massage World recently moved from its previous location at 2460 E. Main St., Suite 106, to its current location at 615 South Randall Road, Suite 100. The violations had occurred at Massage World’s previous location.

“They actually spent $8,000 to upgrade that facility,” Buh told commissioners. “Also on top of that, they signed a four-year lease to do massages at that location, paying roughing $3,000 a month. So they made substantial capital and a long-term investment to have this a successfully run business. Clearly there is no intent to try to make this some sort of brothel or anything along those lines.”

He asked Vitek and the other commissioners for leniency and to impose a small fine rather than to suspend or revoke Massage World’s license.

“Any sort of suspension or revocation is going to be a death penalty for this business, for a crime that Jun didn’t commit,” Buh said. “It was somebody that was not even an employee who, for whatever reason, decided to take whatever action she did on that day. To shut this business down because of somebody else I think is very harsh.”

Following his remarks, commissioners went into closed session to discuss the matter.