KIROTV.com News 

Story

Police: Seattle Tanning Salon Front For Prostitution

Posted: 1:17 pm PDT July 4, 2008Updated: 2:03 pm PDT July 4, 2008

A tanning salon has been shut down after complaints from business neighbors that the salon was a front for prostitution.

Paradise Tanning was doing business along Aurora Avenue North in the Oak Tree Shopping Center, but businesses around it didn’t believe it was a salon for tanning.

“I had a tanning business and I knew what a tanning business should look like, and this didn't look like a tanning business. So I came back and said something's weird over there,” said Jen Day.

Day and her manager, Angela Hall of Hair Sensations, said they thought it was weird from the start. They said the only customers the tanning salon seemed to have were older men.

In June, Seattle police vice officers went undercover at Paradise Tanning.

According to court documents, the immigrant women working here offered not tanning, but $60 massages and "other services" that the officers said amounted to prostitution.

“It was blatantly obvious that something was going on there. It was not a tanning salon at all,” said Day.

The salon has changed its name and has a new logo, but neighbors worry that this is just a front for an old trick.

Seattle police said that Paradise Tanning has been shut down, but they could not provide any information on whom, if anyone, was arrested.

More Headlines

Images In The News

After months and months of delays, Seattle's Hard Rock Cafe is set to open Wednesday near Pike Place Market. View Images ››


SeattleInsider

Enter the "gallery of regrets" at your own discretion as you might feel dumber after seeing this collection of awful and embarrassing tattoos. Full Story ››