OTTAWA -- In the city of Ottawa, there are 28 body rub parlours.
Twenty-seven of them have licences.
One doesn't.
But that doesn't worry Elizabeth Kennedy, the owner of Club Madellyn Jae, who thinks she's found a way around Ottawa police and the city.
Kennedy has set up a private club at 1916 Merivale Rd. Members pay a registration fee ($200 as of Dec. 1) and sign a confidentiality agreement. There's also an annual $10 fee and hour-long sessions cost $160. Members make appointments at their convenience and can spend their time with a pretty girl in the Kama Sutra hostess lounge, but most go to a private room with them equipped with shower facilities.
Kennedy believes a 2005 Supreme Court ruling that allows for private sex clubs gives her the green light to operate Club Madellyn Jae.
Kennedy said she tackles the legality of her operation on her website.
"We are not a 'body-rub parlour' -- we are a private member's only hostess lounge. We are not regulated by the city as the city cannot legally regulate places that are not open to the public," says the website clubmadellynjae.com.
Not a brothel
"CMJ does not sell services, only the use of the facilities and if you desire, the company of one of our hostesses while you are in the club. What you and your hostess do during that time, as long as nothing illegal is going on, is between you and your hostess. However, the club has massage and a shower facility for member's to use if they so desire ..."
Kennedy says she sought legal advice before going ahead.
"I'm not operating a brothel," she said. "I'm not doing anything illegal. I made sure of it and have the lawyer's bills."
Canada's prostitution laws are being challenged in a Toronto courtroom by lawyer Alan Young and three sex workers.
He said his battle is not a moral one but a legal one. He believes the laws create an unsafe working environment for sex workers because people have to go into hiding to ply their trade. If he's successful, it may take away any questions there may be surrounding clubs such as Kennedy's.
Boundaries
Still, CMJ is considered one of the better-run and safest operations in the city according to her many clients, most of who post their support on a popular forum, cerb.ca (Canadian Escort Recommendation Board).
It's widely known there is no intercourse or oral sex happening on-site between the members and the women working for Kennedy, but they do use private rooms. Kennedy will hire secret customers to keep the girls on their toes.
If they're caught stepping out of bounds they're kicked out. Kennedy tells all new members upon arrival to respect the girls and the limitations of the club. If they don't -- and some don't -- they are asked to leave and to never come back.
Kennedy also works out of the club under the name Jasmin, the original temptress. She does massages, and trains all new girls, while going to Carleton University full-time. She went back to finish her fourth and final year of a law and human rights degree.
Kennedy moved to Ottawa in 2004 to attend Carleton and immediately put the word out that she was offering massages in hotels.
Kennedy would go on to operate a body-rub parlour out of her Walkley Rd. apartment. She was investigated by police and the city. She ended up pleading guilty and paying a fine. She was charged once before, but in the Toronto area where she learned the trade of body-rub parlour massage. She then got the idea of setting up a private club after several frustrating years of trying to get a body-rub licence from City Hall.
Two years ago, Kennedy applied for a licence to operate her high-end massage parlour at 1916 Merivale Rd. She'd already invested thousands of dollars into retrofitting the joint and signed a three-year lease.
But the city's chief inspector informed her she wasn't approved for a licence, mainly because the women in her employ would be working without clothes, according to city documents.
Kennedy's employees shower with their clients and perform the massage naked. That includes a body-slide, in which the girls rub their oiled chest up and down the man's back.
Kennedy hired a lawyer for the appeal hearing.
That didn't work either. There were too many questions surrounding the legitimacy of her club, according to minutes from the meeting.
Bylaws stipulate employees must be dressed for health and safety reasons.
'No sex'
She left the Sept. 17, 2007, meeting dejected. With a mounting pile of debt, locked into a three-year lease and having promised her roster of girls a place to work, Kennedy had to do something. She risked bankruptcy and losing her girls to other clubs.
So she opened anyway and has been quietly running her business with little, if any interference from the city -- even though it knew she had been charged twice in the past for operating without a licence.
A regular client confirmed no sex happens on-site.
"No sex happens there, unless you count a hand job as sex. Jasmin (Kennedy) is strict about that. It's actually a pretty well-organized place," said the man.
"You go there because you know what you are going to get every time: A pretty girl, awesome environment and an amazing release."
kenneth.jackson@sunmedia.ca
