CASPER, Wyo. — On Tuesday, the Casper City Council approved the first reading of a repeal to portions of the municipal code relating to massage therapists and massage parlors, following deliberation and feedback from several local professionals.
The city is removing the permitting portions of the city’s code, while also advocating for the state to create a licensing board for massage therapists throughout Wyoming. It is also repealing the business license portion of the ordinance.
The initial hope for the ordinance was that it would help give traction to efforts to create statewide regulations on massage therapists. As that never came to pass, the city is acting as the licensing agency, which city staff say is a challenge.
“It’s not working as intended, and we don’t think it can work at the city level appropriately,” Casper Chief of Staff Fleur Tremel previously told Oil City News. “We don’t have the expertise to do this here.”
The state currently uses licensing boards to evaluate the credentials for many other health-related professions and services, including tattoo artists, counselors, physical therapists and dietitians. However, no such board exists for massage therapists. The full list of licensed professions in Wyoming can be found here.
City Attorney Eric Nelson also said that most states have a statewide licensing board for massage therapists, while Wyoming is just one of three in the nation without one.
