'Room Cafe' Designated as Youth-Restricted Establishment... 20-Day Administrative Notice

Enclosed 'room cafes,' identified as hotbeds of juvenile delinquency, will be included in the list of establishments where youth access and employment are prohibited.

The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family announced on the 15th that it will publicly notify for 20 days a partial amendment to the "Youth Access and Employment Prohibited Establishments Decision Notice" containing this content.

Enacted in 2011, this notice stipulates that to protect youth from harmful environments, establishments with partitioned facilities such as private rooms or enclosed spaces equipped with restrooms, bedding, beds, audiovisual equipment, or sex-related devices, where physical contact may occur, are prohibited from allowing youth access and employment.

Regardless of whether the permit or registration is for general restaurants or other types, the decision on youth access and employment eligibility is based on the actual business activities conducted. Accordingly, under the existing notice, room cafes with private rooms were already subject to youth access prohibition.

However, recently, there have been frequent cases of room cafes operating in motel-style targeting youth, and during enforcement, business owners, local governments, and police requested clear facility standards for youth access and employment prohibited establishments.

In response, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family prepared the amendment notice after further gathering opinions from on-site enforcement agencies such as local government special judicial police officers.

The amendment presents specific facility standards for business operations targeting youth based on facility types to ensure safe use by youth while minimizing infringement on business owners' rights.

The revised notice explicitly includes the commonly used term "room cafe" in the examples of youth access prohibited establishments. Previous examples included kiss rooms, masturbation rooms, prostate massage, glass rooms, and adult PC rooms.

However, even if it is a room cafe, youth access is allowed if the space is partitioned in a way that is visible from the outside.

One side facing the corridor must be entirely transparent glass from the floor to at least 1.3 meters in height up to the ceiling, and the entrance door must have transparent glass from 1.3 meters above the floor to the top of the door, with no partitions or screens. There must also be no locking devices.

Kim Kwon-young, Youth Policy Officer at the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, said, "We will supplement the system based on opinions presented during the administrative notice period to ensure there are no gaps in youth protection."

This amendment notice will be finalized through stakeholder consultations and review and decisions by the Youth Protection Committee.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.