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Alpharetta city attorney outlines fingerprinting and disclosure changes to massage and spa licensing
Summary
City attorney presented proposed revisions to Article 9 of Alpharetta’s code to require fingerprinting for national criminal-history checks, a site survey with new applications, disclosure of certain convictions and an abbreviated renewal path; staff will advertise the ordinance for a public hearing.
City Attorney Miss Eswein told the Alpharetta City Council at a work session that staff proposes changes to Article 9 of the city code governing massage and spa establishments to strengthen licensing checks and reduce repetitive costs for renewals.
“The primary reason for the revisions to the ordinance is to require the fingerprinting for a national criminal history search for any applicants for a massage license,” Miss Eswein said, adding the fingerprinting would be run through the Georgia Crime Information Center so convictions outside Georgia would be returned.
The proposal would require a survey to be submitted with all new license applications so staff can verify location setbacks that are already specified in the ordinance (for example, proximity to schools or churches). It would also add licensing criteria requiring disclosure of specified criminal convictions and bar applicants with three or more ordinance convictions from holding certain licenses, Miss Eswein said. For renewals, the change would permit an abbreviated process if the applicant certifies the location and information remain unchanged, avoiding repeated survey costs.
Brett (Code Enforcement staff) told the council the city has not denied any licenses so far this year and that two businesses have used the exemption allowed by the director. “We haven't had any that we've turned down so far this year,” Brett said.
Council members asked how the fingerprinting differs from the current background checks. Miss Eswein explained that name-based Georgia criminal-history reports may not show convictions from other states, but fingerprint-based searches through GBI/GCIC return national records. Council members also asked whether the ordinance already addresses situations where a license is passed among family members; Eswein said the code already contains residency and disclosure rules aimed at preventing that practice and the proposed changes add disclosure and conviction-based prohibitions to the same sections.
No formal vote was taken at the work session. Miss Eswein said staff will prepare an adopting resolution, advertise the ordinance change, and place it on the public hearing agenda for a future meeting.
The council did not receive public comment on the item during the work session.
