Bottleneckers. William Mellor
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disease and injury stemming from poor sanitation. As a house editorial in the Las Vegas Review-Journal asked,
Some states require up to 2,100 hours of study . . . at considerable expense . . . to acquire a cosmetology license. And even if it were true that a cosmetology school diploma guarantees the holder will never engage in unsanitary practices—it doesn’t—does anyone really need 2,100 hours, or even the “compromise” 300 hours now required to become a licensed “natural hair stylist” in Tennessee, to learn the importance of basic hygiene?133
Indeed, from the perspective of many observers, the only regulatory requirement that is necessary for braiders is spending enough hours in training to learn proper sanitation, and nothing else.134
But for all of the industry leaders’ talk, it is cosmetologists themselves who most aptly describe the motivation behind their licensing schemes. “If we have to take a minimum of 1,200 curriculum hours and pay up to $10,000 to learn our trade, why shouldn’t braiders?” one licensed cosmetologist asked.135 When Essence Farmer sued the state of Arizona, cosmetologists there reacted similarly. “We have to pay for our licenses to be trained to do things and just because [hair braiding is] the only thing she wants to do [doesn’t mean she should be exempt],” said Arizona Academy of Beauty instructor Elaine Rucker. “We have to undergo training and we pay for our licenses. If people start getting exemptions, what’s left for the rest of us?”136
Another reason that cosmetology schools are reluctant to support exemptions for hair braiders is because the licensing requirements mean big business for them. At the time, JoAnne Cornwell was suing the California state board, for example, total cosmetology classroom revenues and test admission fees came to $544 million in California.137 Practicing cosmetologists and the state boards that represent their interests perceive an economic threat from braiders.138 As Taalib explained, “Traditional cosmetologists are feeling the financial pinch of a rising and popular hairstyle. . . . In the effort to recover lost income, they are pressuring states to act as police agents for their cartels.”139 Indeed, some estimates put the size of the cosmetology industry at more than $20 billion in annual sales, generated by the more than seventy-five thousand salons and approximately half-a-million workers.140
Thus, bottleneckers defend their economic interests to the point of legal threats, fines, and armed police raids. “Regulations are more likely to be broadened by those who administer them than to be removed when they cease to serve a useful purpose,” observed the Orange County Register.141 Such broadening can occur stealthily through license creep, as when cosmetology has swallowed hair braiding, or it can be pursued more openly, such as by requiring licensure in an industry where the relationship between regulation and public health and safety is tenuous. Such an industry is the one focused on in the next chapter on interior design.
The Interior Design Cartel’s House of Lies
In 2006, Sherry Franzoy owned and operated an interior design firm in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The trouble was, by state law, she couldn’t tell anyone.
At the time, New Mexico enforced a “titling” law, which allowed anyone in the state to provide interior design services but restricted the use of the title “interior designer” and the words “interior design” to those with a government-issued license. To earn the license, would-be interior designers were required to complete a minimum of two years of post-high school education, possess a combination of six years of education and experience in interior design, and pass an exam. Because she lacked some of the necessary credentials, Sherry could not tell anyone of her interior design work through advertising, business cards, or even casual conversation.
Her lack of credentials did not mean Sherry had entered the business completely untrained, however. As a young girl, she’d dreamed of working as an interior designer.1 But when she married, began raising children, and started managing the business operations of a family farm in New Mexico, her dreams of being a designer faded—until life circumstances intervened. When she and her husband divorced, Sherry needed to find a way to support herself. She worked as a produce broker for a year to make ends meet, but her childhood dream remained in the back of her mind. When she explored the idea further, she came across a business franchise opportunity called Decorating Den Interiors.2 It was a prospect tailor-made for Sherry.
Founded in 1969, Decorating Den Interiors employs interior design professionals throughout the United States and Canada.3 Its work has been featured in Good Housekeeping, Better Homes and Gardens, Woman’s Day, House Beautiful, and House and Garden. In addition, the company has been featured in a variety of design segments on HGTV and the Discovery Channel.4
Decorating Den Interiors franchises are full-service businesses that specialize in complimentary, “we come to you” interior design consultations and sell everything needed to make a room over from floor to ceiling. Important to Sherry, purchasing a franchise came with intensive, condensed schooling on the intricacies of both managing a business and practicing interior design. Before being allowed to start her franchise, the company required Sherry to pass five rigorous tests covering the spectrum of operating an interior design business, including tests on interior design work, people skills, finance, entrepreneurship, and business math. Sherry passed the tests and opened her franchise in 2000. By 2006, she was managing a thriving business with a stable of subcontractors and clients from all over the country. Many of her clients have been East or West Coast transplants who lack the know-how of designing their homes in the Southwestern style that characterizes New Mexico. Sherry has provided these clients with design services ranging from window treatments to kitchen and bath remodels in homes valued from the mid-$200,000s to more than $1,000,000.
Despite her success, in 2006, if she had told anyone that she worked as an interior designer, she would have been violating state law. And New Mexico was not alone in restricting people’s right to talk about their profession. Six other states also restricted the use of the title interior designer, and the requirements for gaining use of it were almost identical across the states. To that were added sixteen other states that prohibited the use of other similar titles such as “certified interior designer” or “registered interior designer,” all on the basis of education and examination requirements similar to New Mexico’s. The presence of titling laws with similar requirements across the states was no coincidence. It was the result of a scheme of national regulation traceable back to yet another group of bottleneckers—the American Society of Interior Designers.5
The roots of the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) reach back to the early 1930s, when it was known as the Association of Interior Designers (AID), and previously to the Association of Interior Decorators,6 which operated as a professional association for the emerging interior design industry. Even then, some in the trade pushed for regulation, but the industry rejected it as unnecessary.7 With the building boom after World War II, the 1950s saw rapid growth in the interior design industry,8 and with it the formation of a second influential association, the National Society of Interior Designers (NSID), and the beginning of a serious push for regulation of the industry.9
The movement for regulation accelerated in the 1960s, culminating in the 1968 introduction of licensing bills in California, New York, Massachusetts, and Texas.10 Although they were rival organizations, AID and NSID worked in concert to advance licensing.11 Relying on a key bottlenecker trope, industry leaders asserted that “there ha[s]to be a set of standards to protect the public,”12 but their economic motivation was plain to see. As the Boston Globe put it at the time, Massachusetts’s bill was designed to stop “amateurs” from “undercut[ting] the professional by selling at a lower margin of profit.”13
Support for regulation was not, however, unanimous within the industry.