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Editor’s Note: This article is part of Civil Beat’s ongoing coverage of prostitution and human trafficking in Honolulu. Read our related coverage:

• Selling Sex in Honolulu: Police Focus Prostitution Arrests on Women, Not Men
• Selling Sex in Honolulu: Prostitution Busts for Men Turn Up Mostly Locals, Few Tourists

At least eight massage parlors in Honolulu have no record of a license to practice, as is required by law, Civil Beat has found.

Civil Beat looked into the licensing of massage parlors because law enforcement officials say the establishments are sometimes used as fronts for prostitution and can be linked to human trafficking.

In our investigation, we went through the phone book and performed Google searches for “Massage Honolulu,” “Full body massage Honolulu,” “Oriental massage Honolulu,” to find establishments.

A search of the Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs’s website showed that all of the massage parlors we found in the phone book were registered and up-to-date. Those parlors included: Siam Thai Massage, Massage Thailand, China Mary Rose, Ohana Massage, Thai Hawaiian Massage, Stay in Touch and Therapeutic Massage Center, all of which were licensed through 2012.

The Google results, on the other hand, were not so positive.

A cursory search performed over a few hours turned up eight businesses that were not listed in the .

Under Hawaii law, local businesses must with the DCCA’s . The exceptions include sole proprietors, charitable organizations and unincorporated associations.

But even if they qualify for an exception, every massage establishment, business or sole proprietor has to get a with the Board of Massage Therapy, a separate arm of the DCCA.

If they fail to do so, they are operating without a license.

But the law isn’t enforced unless a complaint is filed against a business, said Jo Ann Uchida, a complaints and enforcement officer with the DCCA.

In fiscal year 2010, the detection and enforcement wing of the DCCA issued 25 citations and six judgments against businesses that operated without a license.

“We get reports, usually from other licensees but also from consumers that suggest that there might be some activity that requires a license,” said Uchida.

Once a complaint is received, an investigator gathers information on the alleged unlicensed activity. If the office can prove that the business is operating illegally, it then issues citations or judgments.

If cited, businesses are supposed to close until they get a license. The state also issues fines, which vary.

Hawaii Revised Statute says that penalties for first violations must not exceed $500. The fee is up to $1000 for the second and $5000 for three or more offenses.

If the business challenges the citation, it goes to an administrative hearing, where the court can issue a judgment compelling the business to register or pay fines.

Uchida told Civil Beat if the office receives multiple reports regarding the same, or similar location, the office will periodically initiate stings, occasionally with the help of police.

Operating Without A License

Searching the Internet, Civil Beat found the eight businesses that appear to be operating without a license.

Some, like Mai Thai Massage (advertised below) were licensed.

Its license expires June 30, 2012.

But in a single afternoon, we found several other establishments that didn’t have licenses: Pearl City Relaxation, Rosemarri, Rappongi Relaxation, Pine Tree Spa, Tokyo Relaxation, VIP Relaxation, King Spa and Oriental Relaxation.

We called each establishment to make sure that these were real businesses, not out-of-date listings on Google. We verified that they identified themselves by their advertised names and confirmed that they performed massage services.

Businesses Aren’t Allowed to Use Fake Names

Christine Rutkowski, executive officer for the Board of Massage Therapy, says that a business must have a vocational license under the same name that it advertises with.

We verified this with each of the eight businesses we searched.

For example, a Google search displayed the following listing for Oriental Relaxation:

When reached by phone, a receptionist identified the business as “Oriental Relaxation Therapy.”

We searched the DCCA’s database to find out whether it had a vocational license. Under the “Search by Trade Name or DBA Name” option, Oriental Relaxation should have had a valid and up-to-date license. But the Professional and Vocational Licensing Search showed no such business.

Rutkowski told Civil Beat that sometimes businesses may register with slightly varied names. To compensate, we searched several variations.

For example, for VIP Relaxation, we searched the trade-name database for the following terms: “VIP”, “V.I.P.”, “V (space) I (space) P.” None brought up businesses relating to massage.

The same applied to others: Rosemarri, Rappongi, Tokyo Relaxation and Oriental Relaxation. (For these, we searched variants including “Rosemary,” “Rose Mary,” “Rose Marri,” “Rapongi,” “Tokyo,” and “Oriental,” among others.)

Sometimes, our searches turned up results that at first glance look relevant.

For example, when we searched for just “Tokyo,” for Tokyo Relaxation, we found a “Tokyo Medical Massage” — but its license expired June 30, 2000.

Searching the name “Rosemary,” a “Rosemary’s Magic Hands” came up, properly licensed until 2012, but with the wrong address. The licensed business is located on Ohia Street in Kapaa on Kauai — not Oahu.

We had the same results for Pearl City Relaxation and King Spa. We found a “Pearl City Massage Therapy” in the trade-name database but its license expired in 1996. We also found a “King’s Massage” but it was located at a different address than the one given by King Spa over the phone.

Explicit Online Reviews

Some of the massage parlors that did not have a vocational or business license had advertisements and online reviews that explicitly detail sexual encounters. Here’s one for Pine Tree Spa:

To be sure, online reviews aren’t always credible. This could be an attempt by a disgruntled employee or unhappy customer to discredit an establishment.

It is also possible that the registration paperwork for some of the businesses mentioned above are pending and have not yet been put into the vocational license database. Rutkowski told Civil Beat there is an occasional lag between registering with the board and being able to view information online.

One of the eight businesses identified by Civil Beat, Rappongi, was reprimanded in 2007 for operating without a license.

According to a Circuit Court filing, in December, 2007, Rappongi Relaxation was fined $1,500, indicating that it was probably not its first offense.

“The Court ordered Defendant to be enjoined from engaging in the business of a contractor until he obtains a license pursuant to HRS Chapter 444,” the document says.