Wauwatosa, WI Business Licensing & Operations: Massage Establishments (2026)

45, adopted by Ord. O-20-07 on March 17, 2020, replaced an earlier chapter that had required a separate city massage-establishment permit; the current text drops the local license and instead pegs the whole regulatory scheme to the state professional license issued under Wis. Stat. Chapter 460 (Wisconsin's massage therapy and bodywork therapy practice act). 010 bars any person required to hold a Chapter 460 license from practicing that profession in the city, bars a business from letting an unlicensed employee practice, and bars anyone from contracting for services from a person or employee who lacks a current, unexpired state license.

020 requires the license to be displayed 'in a conspicuous and legible location' at the place of business. 030 bars advertising the availability of massage services in Wauwatosa unless the practitioner (or, for a business, its employees) holds the current state license. There is no local application fee or city-issued massage certificate under this chapter; compliance is entirely tied to holding and displaying the Wisconsin DSPS credential. Enforcement runs through the general municipal citation process. A property owner or operator who lets an unlicensed person practice, or who advertises unlicensed services, is exposed to the chapter's own forfeiture, not merely a state licensing complaint, so Wauwatosa treats the state license requirement as directly enforceable local law rather than something left entirely to Madison regulators.