FALLS CHURCH, Virginia — Near the intersection of Summerfield Road and Route 29, in this mostly residential suburban neighborhood near my house, you’ll find two taco places, a classic Italian eatery, a beloved bakery, and by all appearances, a whorehouse.
Officially, it is a massage parlor — the name has changed from Rose Spa to L Health and back to Rose Spa — but everyone understands that massages aren’t on offer there, but sex. The neighbors say so, the police call it “a bawdy place,” and the county councilwoman who lives a few blocks away seems to believe it. But the brothel is still operating, and the cops say they can’t do anything about it.
Recommended Stories
- Fake deportation stories replace fake hate crimes for Democrats
- The cost of letting China into US institutions
- Universal family pricing: Time to make admission free for children at museums and parks
Selling your body for sex is a misdemeanor in Virginia. Hiring a prostitute is also a misdemeanor. Running a prostitution business is a felony. Yet this presumed brothel continues to operate right between Café Bamba and a 1600-foot Cape Cod that is home to a young couple and their 9-month-old baby.
Neighbors are coming to believe that nothing will be done about the neighborhood brothel, and they worry that county prosecutor Steve Descano has no desire to prosecute it.
Word of the brothel spread after two different neighborhood women, upon seeing the signage for Rose Spa, began looking into getting a massage — one told me about it, and the other relayed it in an email to county officials. Both quickly learned that, as women, they were not the target clientele and that the services provided were not what they were looking for.
The spa’s homepage features buxom Asian models and one in a schoolgirl outfit. “Hello gentlemen, welcome to our massage center,” it reads. “Admire our unique sweet girls.”
“High quality massage must be due to pretty girls,” says the page showing the “masseurs” — a page featuring (perhaps AI-generated) videos of seductive Asian women.
A Google search of the address reveals plenty of entries on AMPreviews.net, a site on which men rate “Asian Massage Parlors.” Reviews of Rose Spa include one that reads, “I too saw Lili recently but sadly she was OTR [On The Rag]. She did give a nice BJ.”
A search of the spa’s recent phone numbers turns up explicit advertisements on webpages for escorts, linked to the address.
Four people in the neighborhood told me about the customers they’ve seen enter. “Only men,” one woman in the neighborhood said. A few neighbors reported that the door is typically locked when customers arrive. These are traits typical of a brothel, not a spa.
While the business’s mailing address is Falls Church, it is not within the City of Falls Church (most Falls Church addresses are not), but within Fairfax County.
County records reveal many complaints by neighbors about the business. “I was looking for spas nearby and came across this business in my neighborhood,” one woman reported last November to the county’s Department of Code Compliance. “Upon closer inspection, it appears to be an escort service.”
In February, another neighbor called to complain that the property was hosting an “Illicit Massage Business.”
The department inspected and found that the business had a permit for “personal services” rather than massage therapy, so the department cited the business and made it apply for a new permit, which the county then issued.
Other neighbors in April reached out to the local county councilwoman, Dalia Palchik, and told her the property is “most certainly” a “brothel” and that “it likely is a trafficking situation.” They offered to share screenshots of the business’s advertisements at sites like TrystPage and RubMaps.
Police have been informed, and they showed up at the business twice in July. Two neighbors report that cops told them “their hands are tied” and that there’s nothing they can do but look for code violations.
A few cars from the Fairfax County Police Department visited the brothel in mid-July, and the FCPD commented that the police found the spa was “maintain[ing] a bawdy place,” which state law defines as a place “used for lewdness, assignation, or prostitution.”
Maintaining a bawdy place is a misdemeanor, while it is a felony to receive money for “placing [a person] in a house of prostitution.”
Despite these citations and multiple code violations, the spa was still operating on Monday, July 21.
When I asked the landlady, who has owned the building for decades, about her tenant, she said, “I think they have a license. … I think they do massage. I don’t know. I’m not there.”
I mentioned that the neighbors and police believe she is renting her home to a brothel, to which she responded, “Why should I feel responsible? I don’t live there. I don’t know.”
The office of Steve Descano, the commonwealth’s attorney, did not return a request for comment.