Love Hotels Facing Tougher Regulation

[Mulboyne]

Weekly Diamond says the love hotel industry faces a crisis next year owing to proposed new rule changes. The Tokyo Reporter already covered this territory in a piece last month but here's a summary of the Diamond article.

There are around 7,000 registered love hotels in Japan but perhaps as many as five times that number offering the same kind of service. The majority of establishments choose not to register as a love hotel - governed by the entertainment business law - and instead do so as a lodging - governed by the hotel business law. If your establishment offers services like rotating beds, ceiling mirrors and sex toys then you have no choice but to register as a love hotel. The law also demands that a regular hotel must have a designated separate dining area - which is why many quasi-love hotels opened cafes. However, from January, the definition of a love hotel is due to expand which will make it harder to avoid regulatory reach.

In the future, for instance, any lodging posting its room rates outside and where guests can get a room without ever seeing the face of a hotel employee, will be considered a love hotel. Some establishments will no doubt change their operations to remain under the hotel business law but this will require some expensive remodelling. Others will have no choice but to register as love hotels and, according to Weekly Diamond, that's when more problems begin. The magazine estimates the cost of submitting a new application will amount to several million yen. All applications must be submitted between the 1st and 31st of January 2011 so the window is small, especially considering that New Years holidays will mean that some police departments won't be open for the first few days.

Under existing local ordinances, no love hotels can be within 200m of schools or nurseries. Some are within this boundary because the schools were built later or else they existed together before the love hotel law was introduced. However, any place newly registering as a love hotel will be considered a new building, regardless of how long it has been operating. Police will be able to refuse a licence in a number of cases.

One Shibuya police officer is quoted saying that the tougher regulations could mean up to half the hotels offering love hotel services in his district will disappear.

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[FranciscoDeXavier]

Omfg

[Kanchou]

That shit would never fly in the states.

Violating someones grandfather clause rights, and then taking away their livelihood would get the government sued in a new york minute.

[FG Lurker]

That shit would never fly in the states.

Fuck you. Using the US as an example of government responsibility is ridiculous. Want to see insane shit done to property rights in the US? Look up some of the eminent domain disputes of the past 10 years or so.

Violating someones grandfather clause rights, and then taking away their livelihood would get the government sued in a new york minute.

The hotels aren't being forced to shut down, they are being forced to operate as they are licensed to operate. They're not licensed to operate as love hotels, and have never been licensed to operate as love hotels, so they will no longer be allowed to do so. The loophole allowing them to skirt the law is being closed. Nothing to see here, move along.

[Kanchou]

Red snot is uncalled for.

[American Oyaji]

There are two sides. If they were breaking no law ahead of time and then a law was passed to make it illegal or charge exhorbitant fees, then I would agree with Kanchou.

If the law was there and then they tried to finagle the system in order to operate, then I agree with FGL.

[Kanchou]

It sounds to me like they simply wanted to avoid being governed by entertainment law and instead wanted to be considered lodging (which technically, they are; whether or not people decide to rent for an hour and screw inside is up to them).

It's not as if they were providing any actual entertainment services...it's just a theme hotel with hourly rates that puts an emphasis on privacy.

Skirting the law is not the same as breaking it. By changing to law in a way that causes them to be breaking a law they were previously grandfathered into (namely the 200m from a school, etc), it makes it seem like they're just trying to get rid of love hotels. Not to mention the article said MOST love hotels do this.

I am interested in knowing the difference between the entertainment law, and lodging law.

[Cyka UchuuJin]

Fuck you. Using the US as an example of government responsibility is ridiculous. Want to see insane shit done to property rights in the US? Look up some of the eminent domain disputes of the past 10 years or so.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to FG Lurker again.

[BigInJapan]

The majority of establishments choose not to register as a love hotel - governed by the entertainment business law - and instead do so as a lodging - governed by the hotel business law.

This is just a guess, but I figure that in addition to not having to pay the high legal/bureaucratic costs to register as a love hotel (and potentially getting denied anyway), operating as a love hotel is far more lucrative than being a small business hotel, which is what many of them would be otherwise.
If each room gets used multiple times on just the weekends, I'm sure that's more than a shoddy little business hotel can hope to bring in over the period of a week.

[Dragonette]

This is just a guess, but I figure that in addition to not having to pay the high legal/bureaucratic costs to register as a love hotel (and potentially getting denied anyway), operating as a love hotel is far more lucrative than being a small business hotel, which is what many of them would be otherwise.
If each room gets used multiple times on just the weekends, I'm sure that's more than a shoddy little business hotel can hope to bring in over the period of a week.

Yeah, but on the down side, the multiple daily cleanups have GOT to be a nightmare!

[IparryU]

Yeah, but on the down side, the multiple daily cleanups have GOT to be a nightmare!

some people get off on that you know... if i did, that would be a cool job.

but i dont like cleaning up after this or this , but I do like looking at this or cleaning up this ... sorta sick like that.

[FG Lurker]

Skirting the law is not the same as breaking it. By changing to law in a way that causes them to be breaking a law they were previously grandfathered into (namely the 200m from a school, etc), it makes it seem like they're just trying to get rid of love hotels. Not to mention the article said MOST love hotels do this.

Just to be clear, I think love hotels are great and I've used them hundreds of times.

There are many legitimate love hotels and many shady ones. The shady ones typically open like this:

1) Apply for permission to open a business hotel.
2) Get approval (not all that difficult), and build the hotel. Generally a few "business hotel like" features such as a meeting room get included in the building.
3) Finish construction (nudge nudge, wink wink) and get final approval to open as a business hotel.
4) Bring the construction workers back in and add all the extras needed to operate as a love hotel, then open & operate without approval as a far more lucrative type of business.

As one would expect, the yaks are much more likely to be directly involved in the shady hotels and the cops are doing what they can to cut off another yak income source. In fact, it was an ex-yak acquaintance of mine who explained to me how to go about opening a love hotel without going through the proper approval process. Always good to know a few interesting people. (The yaks are often involved even with legitimate love hotels but usually not quite as directly.)

Legitimate love hotels must get really pissed with all the competition that never went through the proper approval process. It lowers their rates and also lowers the overall value of their businesses when they want to sell them.

Finally, residential areas get justifiably angry when a project they were told was a business hotel suddenly morphs into an illegal love hotel. The massive mega-bright flashing signs running 24/7 must be annoying as fuck. I don't imagine it helps their property values much. (I am guessing that real business hotels don't like this either as no doubt it makes for a lot more opposition to any legit business hotel projects they are trying to get done.)

[terebi_fanatic]

http://blog.japantimes.co.jp/yen-for-living/love-hotel-operators-lose-some-loopholes/

Gotta admit that's a pretty slick move to add and then replace fixtures

[Coligny]

Speaking of which... do you guys know where they buy their stuff for decoration ? I saw some kick-ass room looking like victorian era boudoir and i'd die to get me the same stuff... or anything not like the traditnnal crap furniture from nitori, furniture dome or any other regular shop...

[Level3]

Yet another brilliant scheme by the GOJ to boost the birth rate and population..

oh, wait.

[FG Lurker]

Perhaps a mod could combine this thread with the original from November last year?

terebi_fanatic, FG has a great function called "search". You can (and should) use it to put posts into already existing threads if at all possible.

[terebi_fanatic]

good point, to keep things better organized... I bumped the other thread with this links

[terebi_fanatic]

http://blog.japantimes.co.jp/yen-for-living/love-hotel-operators-lose-some-loopholes/

more updated news article about this

[Ganma]

Close circuit monitoring needed to make sure people are making love in the hotels before designating it a love hotel.