Memo to local lawmakers: Occupational licensing madness can be made sane

One of the many ways government limits job growth, personal realization, and individual liberty is occupational licensing: requiring people to jump through bureaucratic hoops to cut hair and polish nails. Florida shows the hoops can get taken down, as Mike Riggs reports for Reason magazine.

Florida House Bill 1193 loosened or abolished rules governing more than 30 different professions, including cosmetologists, interior designers, and boxing referees.

In 2017, Heather Del Castillo was threatened with hundreds of dollars in fines and up to a year in prison when 'Florida bureaucrats busted her for the crime of giving dietary advice without a license. Florida's new law specifies that people may provide "information or advice concerning nutrition" without a license as long as they don't advertise themselves as medical professionals. The same law also allows barbers and cosmetologists licensed in other states to move to Florida and immediately get to work without going through a lengthy and unnecessary relicensing process.

Read the whole thing here.

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