Prompted by a recent police bust at a massage business, the Mounds View City Council is looking to tighten its code for massage operations.

Anyone holding a therapeutic massage license from the city would have to remain in "good, moral character" in order to keep the license, according to the proposed changes to the ordinance. The City Council is scheduled to review the revisions Monday night and is expected to vote on the issue at its March 9 meeting.

Defining good, moral character can be tricky, acknowledged Joe Flaherty, mayor of Mounds View.

"It is very subjective; we do understand that," he said. "If a person that is holding the license demonstrates in some way -- breaking the law or whatever -- to be of not in good, moral character, then that would give us a significant opportunity to repeal the license."

Last month, city leaders revoked the license of Xiu Ji Li after she was arrested on suspicion of promoting prostitution, said Mounds View Police Chief Mike Sommer.

She held a therapeutic massage license for a business called Jian Kang Massage, located on County Road 10.

A man identified in court records as an employee of the massage center also was arrested, on suspicion of prostitution and for allegedly being a fugitive from justice in another state, Sommer said.

Both crimes are felonies. No charges have been filed.

Jian Kang Massage is the only massage operation in town, Flaherty said.

Sommer said the business was open for less than a year when police received information, anonymously, that sex acts were being performed there, triggering an investigation.

According to a search warrant affidavit filed in Ramsey County District Court:

A woman complained to police in October 2008 that the massage center was asking the massage therapists to perform sex acts on clients.

An undercover officer went to Jian Kang Massage on Nov. 14 to conduct a compliance check.

The officer was met by Li and was led to a room set up for a massage.

He paid the fee up front and attempted to solicit a sex act from Li during and after the massage. Li declined, according to the affidavit.

A St. Paul police investigator then went to the massage center on Nov. 24, also to conduct an undercover operation. No sex act occurred or was offered.

The investigator returned and on his third visit, a woman named "Co Co" conducted a standard massage for about 40 minutes and eventually started massaging the officer's genitals, the affidavit stated.

The investigator asked her to stop and the woman apologized several times.

Police also conducted surveillance and observed that only male customers entered the business, according to the affidavit.

Both Li and the man who was arrested moved to Mounds View from Monterey Park, Calif. They lived in an apartment building less than a mile from the massage center, court records show.

They were booked on Dec. 29 at the Ramsey County jail.

Allie Shah • 612-673-4488