A popular Hobart day spa will once again pamper the masses in a new location closer to downtown thanks to a variance.

The Hobart Town Council at its Wednesday night meeting unanimously approved the variance for Heavenly Handz Day Spa, 7834 E. Ridge Road, after confusion over the city’s ordinance regarding day spas left owners Bernadette Munguia and Meghan Cervantes in limbo for a couple months.

Munguia and Cervantes received notice in late February that the owner of their space at 710 N. Hobart Road was evicting them to expand their own business, Munguia said Wednesday. They were able to persuade the owner to give them an extra month to find a new space, which they did on East Ridge Road, she said.

But when the two went to get their certificate of occupancy, the city denied them on April 6 because of conflicting ordinances, she said. One ordinance classifies businesses providing massage therapy as “adult entertainment,” which would be conditionally allowed in an M-1 zoned area, while another classifies them as “cosmetic- and health-related.”

With clergy, nuns and law enforcement counted among their clientele for the last 18 years, the two, who took over the business five years ago, could ensure their business was health-related, Munguia said.

“We ran chair massages at St. Mary’s before the pandemic,” she said. “We poured our life savings into buying it, so this is our baby.”

The two were then directed to appeal to the Board of Zoning Appeals, which granted them a variance to operate at its last meeting. The Town Council concurred, much to the co-owners’ delight.

“We didn’t think we’d have to do any of this. It was definitely a left turn in our lives,” Cervantes said.

The council has instructed Town Attorney Heather McCarthy to reconfigure ordinances to correct the initial confusion.

Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter.