Posted on 04/28/2011 7:44:23 AM PDT by TheDingoAteMyBaby
A part-time hair braider sued Utah on Tuesday, claiming the state's requirements to obtain a cosmetology license are irrelevant to her job and an unconstitutional infringement on her right to earn a living.
Jestina Clayton learned how to braid hair as a 5-year-old in her West African home country of Sierra Leone. Now living outside Salt Lake City, the 28-year-old said she braids hair as a side business to support her two children while her husband finishes school.
Last year, Clayton discovered her business was illegal without a license. Utah law requires anyone working with hair, including hair braiders, to take about 2,000 hours of coursework in order to obtain a cosmetology license. Industry representatives say tuition for such classes could cost between $9,000 and $19,000 nationwide.
Clayton, who makes up to $4,800 on a good year, said that even if she could afford the classes, the courses in Utah do not specifically address hair braiding.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
That’s the whole point of laws such as this - for the established businesses to thwart upstart competition.
Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell have both written numerous articles and columns about the way lobbyists and politicians discriminate against enterpreneurs and establish artificial barriers to market entry through licensing requirements like this.
btw, is your screen name a reference to “Out of Africa” or to Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
Exactly. This woman has a skill that people are willing to pay for but unfortunately for her to use that skill she must pay up first.
Seinfeld and A Cry in the Dark.
the same argument can be used to oppose licensing of contractors, taxi drivers, lawyers, doctors, etc...
Not a bad idea to stop all licensing.
Stops government intrusion and stops people from having to become another arm of the state.
Yes, as most laws these days are designed to do. Kind of a shadow guild system designed to smash the little guy while cutting out exceptions for the big boys. That’s why you see the mega corps getting behind the soul-crushing regulations in the US. I think it was “The Forgotten Man” that discussed the birth of this type of legislation during the New Deal.
Hoo-wee, you’ll get pounded for that view......even though it is the correct one.
It is also the reason that the Universities are crowded, expensive and filled with lefties. They make the rules for employment, then control the “gates” of that employment. A test for competency for driving a bus, operating a train or airplane before ferrying passengers is necessary, but a University degree is not. Why then must you submit to a “degree” and licensing to cut or braid hair? To dig graves? To apply makeup to dead people in a funeral home? To teach children? Competency means everything, a degree means nothing. As a matter of fact, people can fake a degree, they cannot fake being competent, and the best judge of that is the customer.
Not the same argument at all. Whether a tech can braid or not is visible on the spot — the quality is objectively verifiable immediately by any reasonable person.
Manifestly not true for contractors, doctors and lawyers. Licensing might thwart competition, but it also protects the public. I don’t want unlicensed doctors practicing.
I agree with you that anyone with a driver’s license should be able to run a taxi service.
George Stigler wrote about this in his 1971 paper The Theory of Economic Regulation. It is here for free.
http://faculty.msb.edu/murphydd/CRIC/Readings/Stigler—Th%20of%20Econ%20Regulation%201971.pdf
This may be nothing new for you but I enjoyed the paper and maybe yo will too.
Indeed it can and quite correctly so.
The Assassin’s guild will always be completely unlicenced.
Lady... just go to beauty school like everyone else did. Bonus: They teach hygiene techniques along with everything else. Get your license and quit whining.
It's not the same. In fact, you can hire a handy man to do all kinds of things, and he doesn't need a contractors license.
However, I'm sure it's only a matter of time before they come up for a license for that too.
Thomas Sowell’s econ books are a must read as well.
Hoo-wee, you’ll get pounded for that view......even though it is the correct one.
Think so? I am getting more libertarian by the minute.
Too many people love the gov’t licensing you to do stuff. Even so-called conservatives.
How about licensing of marriage?
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