Want more bang for your buck?

Then you’ll have to look somewhere other than Brookline, where two massage parlors, allegedly offering under-the-table sexual favors to customers, were shut down last Wednesday for employing unlicensed masseuses.

A recent article in The Brookline Tab exposed Harmony Massage and mentioned Joy of Living massage parlors as venues that offered “sex for pay” in addition to a standard massage.

Dr. Alan Balsam, Brookline’s director of health and human services, said he sent two inspectors to investigate the massage parlors, and they found several unlicensed masseuses.

“Town law says only licensed massage therapists can be employed,” Balsam said.

Balsam said the two parlors, one located on Beacon Street and the other on Boylston Street, will be fined $1,000 and ordered to attend an administrative hearing that will determine whether their licenses will be suspended or permanently revoked.

Balsam added that police “were tipped that there might be prostitution.”

Capt. John O’Leary of the Brookline Police Department said the Tab’s article actually hindered an ongoing criminal investigation of the two massage parlors.

“There is an investigation going on,” O’Leary said, and although he said no criminal charges have been brought yet, “[massage parlor owners] were made aware of people looking into them” as a result of the expos in the Tab.

Licensed massage therapist Eli Thompson said unlicensed masseuses are not really the issue at hand, adding that licensing rules are “arcane” and “impractical.”

Thompson said there are many unlicensed massage therapists that are equally skillful as those with permits. Licenses are merely “a way for the town to control [massage practitioners],” he said.

The real issue is the image of massage parlors in the public eye, Thompson added.

“Massage is a rather effective means of treating a plethora of injuries, diseases” and other such ailments, Thompson said. “[Instances of alleged prostitution] de-educate the community about what massage is.”

Thompson added that if the allegations prove true “they should be prosecuted.”

Gary Kayakachoian, head of the Brookline Neighborhood Association, said he was not surprised by allegations of prostitution in the area of Brookline where the massage parlors are located.

“It’s sort of a crumby area,” Kayakachoian said. “No one decent would go up and down [the massage parlor’s stairs].”