Activist reaches out to strippers

Former addict, now 75 and in failing health, still a mentor to ‘my girls'
Marlene Gaskill doesn't know how to back down from a fight.

The 75-year-old community activist who led a campaign to eradicate illicit massage parlors from Gwinnett County in 2003 has battled for her life in recent years. Gaskill moved in March to the Sunrise Senior Living facility in Johns Creek after undergoing surgery for a potentially fatal brain aneurysm and developing emphysema from 60 years of smoking.

She quit smoking four months ago — too late to avoid being tethered to an oxygen tank most of the time.

But Gaskill maintains a positive outlook, a spunky disposition and a passion to help those she calls “my girls.”

Gaskill believes God put her on this Earth to mentor strippers. She said they need the same love and forgiveness that she benefited from 10 years ago when she became a Christian.

“I was a drug addict for 30 years and was in a lot of strip clubs,” Gaskill unabashedly proclaims. “These girls one way or another, one place or the other, are looking for love.”

Sometimes Gaskill gives them a hug, other times a gift, still other times a prayer. She does what she can to get them off the pole and into a more positive and productive life.

The “girls” even visit Gaskill and her little West Highland white terrier Angel at Sunrise, where she is considered a local character. Gaskill makes no secret of a racy past that included lobbying for legalization of marijuana and partying with Hugh Hefner at the Playboy mansion.

However, Gaskill may be better known for her crusade to rid Gwinnett County of massage parlors that were fronts for prostitution in 2003.

It all started when she went for a stroll with her dog at the Gwinnett Walk shopping center and stopped at a new business with tinted windows to inquire about what they were selling. She was turned away when the owners told her they offered “gentlemen only” massages.

Gaskill, who was a board member for the United Peachtree Corners Civic Association at the time, complained loudly and often to police and county commissioners about illicit massage parlors. Less than a year later, commissioners voted to overhaul the county's massage therapy ordinance. Subsequent enforcement efforts by Gwinnett County police eradicated about 30 spas that were in business at the time.

Gov. Sonny Perdue appointed Gaskill to the state Board of Massage Therapy after it was established in 2005. As a member, she helped set standards of qualifications, education, training and experience for massage therapists. Gaskill said she is proud of her efforts to expose and expunge the sleazy establishments with the help of county police and commissioners.

“They were whorehouses, houses of prostitution,” Gaskill said. “I knew it had to be illegal.”

Illicit massage parlors have resurfaced in Gwinnett, but in smaller numbers than in years past.

In February, nine massage therapy businesses across the state, including two in Gwinnett County, were targeted in a joint sting operation involving several law enforcement agencies. Gwinnett police issued a total of 10 citations for massaging without a permit at Spa 18 on Pleasant Hill Road and Foot Spa on Old Norcross Road, both in Duluth.

Investigators also arrested three employees on prostitution-related charges at Great Health Spa near Norcross in October after a woman there offered an undercover officer sex for $240.

ajc.com