Victoria’s brothels booming

Press, 7 January 1987, Page 8

Victoria’s brothels booming

NZPA correspondent Sydney The world’s oldest profession is booming in Victoria since brothels were legalised, according to a report in a Melbourne newspaper. The “Age” said yesterday that Victoria’s licensing system for brothels had become a financial bonanza for massage parlour owners selling their businesses. Before brothels were legalised in Victoria in 1984, the market price for massage parlours was between sAustl9,999 ($12,899) and sAustls,999 ($19,200) for leasehold rights to a premises and associated “good wilt”

The .. newspaper said there were now 41 legal

brothels in Victoria and sales of “quality” brothels on freehold land had fetched more than sAustl million over the last year. The benchmark price for brothels on leasehold land was $Au5t399,999.

The : transactions follow warnings from the Victoria police that a legal brothel industry would become a target for organised crime syndicates which had the money to pay for the businesses. One brothel owner was quoted as saying that when the business was illegal it ran the risk of being closed down, so noone was prepared to pay for the risk.

“Now we have a permit the business is a tangible asset,” he said.

"That enables us to employ better staff — receptionists and hostesses — and to provide training for management skills. You know you are there to stay so the money is well spent,” said the owner. “It’s the only significant, legalised, private enterprises prostitution industry in the world.” As an example of the brothel property price rises, one luxuriously appointed massage parlour, The Daily Planet, was put on the market in 1979 without a permit for $Au5t259,999. The owner, Mr John Trimbole, said that the price tag would now be sAust4-$6 million, but it was not for sale. Mr Trimbole, who commutes from his Syd-

ney harbourside home to Melbourne In bls own aircraft, was spending sAustl million on renovating his premises. The “Age” also reported that the market had become so valuable that two entrepreneurs had set up a company known as The Brothel Brokers, which had recently advertised the sale of two brothels for $Au5t399,999 and another for sAust4Bs»999. A recent report on prostitution in Victoria estimated that the business supported a service industry employing up to 4999 people, including town planners to facilitate council permits, lawyers to handle planning and court appeals, publishers and launderers.