GQ Spa Hearing Concludes

A hearing about the future of concluded Friday with testimony from village officials and business representatives who painted different pictures of the business’ operations.

Village officials learned Friday that GQ Spa is listed on eroticmp.com, a website that details services offered by what it describes as “erotic massage parlors” and features customers’ reviews.

In addition to sauna and table shower services, the spa offers “lick the kitty” and “breast play,” among other services, according to details revealed when a village staff member paid for a subscription to the site shortly before the hearing.

“It appears that it’s erotic massage,” said Mary Moodhe, who works in the village’s information technology department and was called to testify at the hearing. Reviews posted on GQ Spa’s listing included comments such as “You can get it all” and “They just really love to please me,” she said.

The hearing was called by Village President Jeff Braiman after a .

Friday’s hearing at , , lasted for more than two hours. Testimony from village witnesses was punctuated with angry objections by GQ Spa attorney Robert Aronson, who described the website’s portrayal of the business as “garbage.”

In his cross-examination of Moodhe and Village Manager Dane Bragg, Aronson asked if they knew the identities of the reviewers on eroticmp.com or if the commenters were, in fact, customers at GQ Spa. Both said they did not know.

Testimony was also provided by Brian Sheehan, the village’s deputy building commissioner and health officer. Sheehan said that during inspections of the facility, which he last visited during a remodeling project last year, he observed no health code violations and noted the masseuses held state licenses.

“Did you see any boxes of condoms? Did you see petroleum jelly?” Aronson asked Sheehan.

No, Sheehan answered.

In his defense of GQ Spa, Aronson described owner Christina Lee as an honest woman who should be allowed to continue to run her business in Buffalo Grove.

Since the spa opened in 2007, village inspections revealed, “There were no condoms there. There were no towels with sperm there,” Aronson said. “If there was any evidence … they would have done something a long time ago.”

While Lee runs GQ Spa, its license is held by Chris Hong, who handles the accounting.

“[Lee] wanted to open up a massage parlor. She didn’t know how to set up a corporation. She didn’t know how to get a business license. She didn’t know anything but how to run a massage parlor,” Aronson said, adding that she enlisted Hong’s help when she opened GQ Spa.

“If you want to do the right thing by the village and by her, you won’t cancel the license. You’ll order a transfer from Hong to where it should be, with her,” Aronson said.

Following the hearing, Hong told Patch that the business license is in his name because he is the one who filed the paperwork with the village. He stood beside Lee, who expressed regret over the sequence of events that led up to the hearing.

“I apologize to Buffalo Grove. I really do,” she said. “I feel so bad about what happened.”

While she runs the spa, she said she “cannot control 100 percent” the actions of the masseuses, who undergo ethics training as part of their certification. “We’re trying to run the business the right way,” she said.

Aronson and village prosecutor Ron Sandler agreed at the end of the hearing that GQ Spa’s clientele includes people who “neither ask for or receive sexual favors.”

Braiman, who presided over the hearing, will decide whether the business’ license will be revoked. He said he will review the facts and announce his decision within a week or 10 days. Should he decide to revoke GQ Spa’s license, the owner will have the option of appealing to the full Village Board and ultimately through the court system.