Business Zoning Changes Fast-Tracked After Chinese Massage Parlor Opens

An overhaul of local business zoning rules moved forward this week.

Borough commissioners discussed proposed new rules that could restrict some services, such as massage, tattoo parlors and body piercing shops, from storefront locations on Kings Highway and other business districts. Those businesses may be restricted to “second-floor” locations in areas where professional offices, such as doctors, are located.

Borough officials insist a new Chinese massage parlor that opened this month at 144 Kings Highway East is not the reason for the new regulations. One member of a local Internet chat room referred to it as a “wink, wink massage parlor.”

Local officials said the mix of retail and service businesses has been a concern for some time. An existing business plan calls for no more than 15 percent of service businesses in the downtown district. Mayor Tish Colombi said the town is “well over” that now.

Owners of the new massage parlor have been reluctant to speak to the media. But that hasn’t stopped them from running afoul of Colombi and other local officials.

“I found this on the window of my car,” Colombi said recently, holding up a flier for the massage parlor at a meeting of the Partnership for Haddonfield, the borough’s tax-funded business improvement district. “They were all over cars in the Acme parking lot. It’s not legal to put things on cars in Haddonfield. It’s incredible what’s going on. This does not make the town look good.”

“Our hope was that a retailer would go into that retail spot,” Lisa Hurd, retail coordinator for the Partnership for Haddonfield, said after the meeting. “But that did not occur. There was nothing to prevent a service use from going in there.”

Borough Solicitor Mario Iavocoli has advised the commissioners that they can regulate undesirable business but cannot ban then outright. The Chinese Tai Ji Massage Center received a zoning variance to operate a service business in a retail location. The variance was granted because of language in zoning regulations that Iavocoli and the commissioners want to change. 

The new language would not allow service uses for certain businesses, such as massage, tattoo and body piercing shops in storefront locations on Kings Highway and other designated retail shopping areas.

Officials stressed that any change in zoning laws will not affect businesses that are currently operating, such as the Chinese massage parlor.