By Guy Page
Vermont Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas says her office is moving to close a regulatory gap that has limited law enforcement’s ability to address suspected human trafficking at massage parlors across the state.
Speaking with VDC in an impromptu interview in Montpelier on Tuesday, Dec. 23, Copeland Hanzas said authorities have raised concerns about massage businesses where activity suggests possible exploitation, but where enforcement options have been limited because only individual license holders — not the massage establishments themselves — are currently regulated.
At present, authorities may only target individual licensees, Copeland Hanzas said. That has hindered effective investigation and intervention in situations that may involve human trafficking.
After the Legislature reconvenes January 7, the Secretary of State’s Office, through its Office of Professional Regulation (OPR), plans to seek statutory authority to require massage practices themselves to register with the state. The proposal would also allow for inspections of massage establishments, giving regulators and law enforcement an additional tool to identify potential trafficking or labor violations.
According to Copeland Hanzas, police departments in Burlington and Brattleboro have reported noticing massage businesses where women who do not appear to have been born in the United States are present, along with a pattern of men frequently coming and going — activity that has raised red flags for investigators.
The Office of Professional Regulation oversees Vermont’s licensed professions, including massage therapists. Under the current system, OPR can take action against licensed individuals but has limited authority over the businesses where they work. The licensees themselves may be victims of shadowy crime organizations that come and go in Vermont, Copeland Hanzas said.
The proposed changes would be included in OPR’s annual bill before the Legislature, which updates professional regulation statutes. If approved, the new rules would allow the state to register massage practices, conduct inspections, and more directly support law enforcement efforts to identify and disrupt trafficking operations.
The goal is not to target legitimate massage therapists or businesses, but to protect vulnerable individuals and provide authorities with the tools needed to address exploitation.
Discover more from Vermont Daily Chronicle
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Categories: Legislation
After leading Vermont into commercialized cannabis, and allowing anyone to pick up ballots from senior facilities to deliver to polling places, I’m glad to see that Sarah does have concerns in the public interest in this arena.
The bar is on the floor at this point.
I thought we were trying to legalize prostitution in this state? Why now are we concerned with human trafficking and our border? We’re a sanctuary state where all are welcome to collect benefits and be exploited under the veil of calling these individuals citizens. I want to believe this is a true pursuit to correct things, but I feel this may just be another political stunt as we inch closer to elections. If this was truly a concern, we should have been fighting for change all along. And how do they know these women don’t look like they are from here? Are there polsters gathering stats as patrons leave from obtaining “services”?
That is a good point about legalized prostitution. I guess that the state needs to get rid of the competition first.
“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from the Lord God?” Corinthians 6:19
Thereby, in keeping with God who created us all and in alignment with His repeated decrees that BOTH sexes, men and women, at all times remain sexually moral – ANY individual involved in “selling” their body to another for money is a “vulnerable” individual – regardless of whether they are being trafficked or are purportedly engaging in this dehumanizing “trade” on their own volition.
This is precisely why prostitution has historically been illegal. It is in complete contradiction to moral order, it spreads disease, it endangers human life via unplanned pregnancies, and it subjugates women and womanhood’s dignity (primarily women, but males serve as prostitutes as well, with DOJ estimates of one-third of all prostitutes being male) and reduces human beings to nothing more than chattel, i.e.: slaves to other humans.
Gosh, and I thought VT OUTLAWED slavery back in the 18th Century??? I suppose the intrinsic dignity of females in general is of much lessor significance & value to that of Africans or African Americans.
Needless to state, institutes of “higher” learning have very effectively manipulated young women particularly into believing, just as they managed to do with their abortion advocacy, that allowing someone else to use another’s sacred body for their personal perverse pleasure is “empowering” and doing so amounts to nothing more than one’s own personal “choice” of “occupation” or “profession”. And many young women have bought into such blasphemy hook, line, and sinker.
Sisters…….you have been and are being played big time! No, slaughtering your own progeny is not empowering, a necessity, healthcare, or a “choice”. It is murder. And selling your body for a C-Note is just as much of a sacrilege. Wise up. The state of your humanity and your soul are but aching for you to tell that moron of a professor to go to hell. You, on the other hand, have the ability for true knowledge, and therefore, salvation.
We were apparently “too good” to have Christianity in our schools, but Islam is welcome and is happy to step in.
And these fools think they’ll be safe under Sharia.
Now does Vermont have a little Epstein operation doing business in this wonderful crime free state???????
If you have a business in Vermont now, it must be registered for tax purposes. You do not have to wait for any new laws to be made. Looks to me like a massage parlor is a business with a street address. This looks like another big show with no substance.
You may recall not long ago I mentioned the Chinese massage happy ending joints, in these pages, while discussing the Chinese Consul General’s visit to Vermont ,and his agenda, and brought up that they could be used to launder money or as fronts for other activities… so now… suddenly… the VT SOS pops up saying she claims credit for ramrodding the issue…I guess it is monkey see… monkey do, then grab credit with a big smirk on her face saying now…”Look at me!”.
Now about those voting machines Madam SOS…
Another permit and its associated fees for a problem that already has fixes for.
TEL. LIE. VISION., now has to report on the Epstein and Trump soap opera and what is missing is the names of all the media perverts that were connected to Epstein. There are many other websites covering this twenty four hours daily.
How many involve illegal immigrants? Perhaps ICE could be of assistance
I love the way she dances around the subject, trying not to appear racist by describing, “women who do not appear to have been born in the United States.” I thought this was called racial profiling. According to the ACLU, “Racial profiling is widely considered both illegal in many contexts and unethical as a matter of professional and human rights standards. In practice, it is treated as a form of discrimination that violates civil rights and equal protection guarantees.”
In 2025, Vermont bills S.54 (Senate) and H.190 (House) were introduced to repeal state prostitution laws that criminalize consensual adult sex work while keeping strong penalties for human trafficking and exploitation. In 2023, Vermont passed a law banning law enforcement from engaging in “investigatory sex,” building on existing bans on custodial sex and creating one of the strongest legal frameworks in the U.S. against police sexual exploitation.
In 2022, Burlington voters approved a charter change removing the city’s explicit ban on prostitution from the city charter, and the governor later signed that change into law.
And yet she and her pal, Attorney General Charity Shark, seek to limit law enforcement’s ability to help in the removal of people who are in Vermont and our country illegally. What in the world kind of hypocritical cognitive dissonance is going on here?
NOTE TO ALL COMMENTERS –
please be aware that as of Thursday, January 1, 2026, all commenters must be Sustaining Subscribers.
At present, hundreds of Sustaining Subscribers each contribute $108 per year. Their support pays our staff and many software fees. I hope you will agree that reading AND commenting on VDC is worth $9/month. Also, if you are already a 2026 Sustaining Subscriber – i.e. have subscribed since November 1, 2025 – please accept my thanks. No further action is necessary. Here’s a link for online contributions:
https://vermontdailychronicle.com/contribute/3783-2/
Checks may be mailed to: Vermont Daily Chronicle, P.O. Box 1547, Montpelier, Vermont, 05601. Your support is not tax-deductible. If you have any questions, please email us at news@vermontdailychronicle.com.
Finally, please be aware that as of January 1, 2026, the annual price for a Sustaining Subscription will increase for the first time to $11/month, or $132 per year. I encourage you to ‘lock in’ for 2026 at the current, lower price.
If you have any questions or comments, please LMK at news@vermontdailychronicle.com. – Guy Page, Publisher