From Carolina Journal:

“That’s insane,” said Shoshana Weissmann, policy fellow at the Washington D.C.-based R Street Institute. Weissman, an outspoken libertarian researcher and commentator, focuses laser attention on occupational licensing issues. Issues that get especially tense where cosmetic lobbies and associations are concerned, she said.

State law isn’t the only barrier cosmetologists face in North Carolina, Weissmann said. Local ordinances add to the pile.

For example, Charlotte’s city code prohibits home businesses such as barber and beauty shops. In Raleigh, home occupation rules ban “nonresident employees” from visiting in-home “offices.” Clients, customers, patients, and visitors are also blocked from the premises.

That’s news to nail technicians like Jane, who’d never even given a thought to a mobile manicure service until COVID-19 forced her salon doors shut.

“Not a lot of regular people would know that,” she told CJ. “You would have to investigate deeply in order to know that.”

It’s one thing for North Carolina’s governor to make any type of in-home business visits a misdemeanor for public health reasons while the state battles COVID-19, Weissmann said. It’s another thing altogether for stylists to lose their cosmetic licenses or be fined simply because they want to serve clients at home.

“[That punishment] is just because it’s outside of a salon,” Weissmann said.

But that’s not necessarily the case, R Street’s Weissmann said. While cosmetic boards and lobbies preach health safety, and some salons meet exceptional standards, surveys — like one from the Rutgers School of Public Health —  show two-thirds of salon patrons come away with skin, fungal, or respiratory infections.

It comes down to personal choice.

“It’s one thing if a stylist goes to someone’s house and is like, ‘You know, this isn’t a clean environment. I’m not comfortable with it,’” Weissmann said. “That can be their choice. But they have the training. They know the right way to do things and decide, ‘Hey, it makes sense to do it out of someone’s house.’”

“There’s no reason that shouldn’t be the case.”

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