Industry welcomes regulation

A first hint that your regulation regime helps create a cartel is a strong endorsement from the regulated industry. It's not always so - sometimes industries welcome things that are less bad than they'd otherwise expected. But still.

Auckland's requiring licences to run suntan beds.

Auckland will be the first city in the country to license sun beds and slap an age restriction on their use.

Auckland Council will require commercial sun-bed businesses to be licensed and comply with a new code of practice including restricting use to those 18 years and over.

The requirements are part of a new Health and Hygiene Bylaw passed by the super-city council's Governing Body today that will replace those of the seven former councils from July 1 next year.

But wait, there's more!

Also caught in tightened health laws will be any businesses that "risk breaking the skin" - such as hair removal, manicure/pedicure and exfoliation.

Licences will be required for commercial services that pierce the skin such as body piercing, tattooing and traditional tattooing.

Traditional and non-commercial ta moko undertaken by artists on, or under the authority of, a marae in the Auckland region would be exempt.

"Licensing gives us a method to monitor areas where we believe there is the highest risk to peoples' health through poor practices, while the code of practice gives the industry a good guideline of what is acceptable," Quax said.

I hope that all of this sticks to very general sanitary code kinds of rules rather than processes that add substantially to small businesses' fixed costs.

These kinds of occupational licensing rules have completely run amok in the US. Let's not import this particular kind of stupidity. We don't really need big barriers to entry for immigrants setting up pedicure shops.