(Christian Wade, The Center Square) Cutting someone’s hair without a professional license is no longer a crime in New Hampshire under a bill signed by Gov. Chris Sununu.
The new law updates the state’s occupational license laws to exempt services “provided without remuneration” from license requirements for barbering, cosmetology, and esthetics. Sununu signed the legislation along with a dozen other bills on Thursday.
Under the previous law, cutting hair without a state license is a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by a fine up to $2,000 or one year in prison.
The previous restrictions covered other professions and banned anyone from hiring a person “to engage in a practice regulated by this chapter, unless such person then holds a valid license or a temporary permit issued by the board to practice the respective profession.” more
Any mention of unlicensed sex in any of those bills?
You need a license to do this shit???
https://www.weirdworm.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Bizarre-Hairstyles-1021×580.jpg
Need a license to cut hair but any greasy filthy stinking asshole can be a Sandy O’Cortez type congresswhore – or vote.
Wobbles the mind.
izlamo delenda est …
My wife and I owned a salon years ago. Two cutting stations and a third one for nails. Things were great in the beginning, but as with all small businesses, the state and local town would prefer to run you out of business rather than collect tax revenue. Barely survived past ten years.
Certain things made sense. Like installing trips in the power outlets of the hair stations since they also included sinks. Did that anyway, yet was glad the annual inspector checked for that. Most of the remainder was BS and the state or local town would impose new crap demands each year. I could go on with horror stories, but will spare you the details. The hilights… We were forced to reposition the door to be on ground level in order to provide wheelchair access to no one since in the 12 years we were in business all those folks must have been going somewhere else. This included installing handicap parking signs outside and a handicapable toilet too. The rear exit that customers never used had to be hooked up to the fire alarm. Ventilation had to be installed even though the door and windows were open most of the year. Keeping 30 to 40 retail products on the shelf cost more than any profit made from sales on top of paying inventory fees each year, so we didn’t do that very long. We absolutely hated being unpaid tax collectors for the state. We had to have business signs remade after a few years because the town passed an ordinance limiting the number of colors permitted on the same sign. All this as well as dealing with a majority of customers that never wanted to pay more than ten bucks for their haircut. The place was broken into once and let me tell ya, you don’t want to have to clean up the mess left behind after the cops dust for fingerprints. The final straw that shut our doors was having to install a holding tank for the sinks that we had to get professionally taken away and disposed of. Damn thing was ugly and would have taken up a third of the floor space.
As for this situation in NH, no one was ever going to be arrested for cutting their neighbor’s hair. If you opt for that over professional service, then knock yourself out. Eventually, people will reluctantly come back for quality service. We’d have been livid if were were still operating a salon and it was up in that state. No licensing? Fine. Then how about not imposing us to grease the palms of multiple inspectors annually that enforce ridiculous codes and absurd standards too.
Yep, the first thing I do when I get my hair cut is check to make sure their hair cutting license is current.
After the last 16 months I’m for getting rid of as much licensing as possible. This is just used as a way for government to control your business, when it can open, how it can operate with very little regard to actual safety.
MMinWA and Anon, perhaps you’re not aware of this, yet you can’t buy certain salon grade products without a license. No idea how that’s going to play out in NH now. If that goes away too, then a dye job will be a choice between either a box product from your local CVS or taking a gamble your neighbor will mix the chemicals in a way that doesn’t make all your hair fall out. This assumes your neighbor also knows how to properly apply and pull the hair to be dyed thru a mask in a way that doesn’t run into your eyes and blind you. Fear of losing one’s license forced you to not only comply with tax law, but also ensured you didn’t screw anybody up.
“Live Free or Dye”
Well after COVID shut down all the Barbers and Salons I started cutting my own hair. Not that tough. The wife’s got to get the back. No appointments, no small talk. And the same results.It’s great. I’ll never go back.
I always hated getting my hair cut unless the gal had big……well, you get the idea. I’ve been cutting it myself for the last 16 months. The front goes ok but I can’t see the back so I’ve got a pretty nice pony tail going (not a man bun, no way). Wife wants me to dye her hair and I absolutely refuse for the very reasons Fish outlined above. No way I would do anything to hurt my wife.
@Brad: And if your wife cuts your hair, it’s OK if your haircut has a happy ending!
Cynic
Yea, but I’m required to shower first. LOL
I don’t require the government to protect me from anything that should be my responsibility, whether it’s getting a haircut, putting gorilla glue in my hair or investing with a Bernie Madoff.
I’m pretty certain dying one’s hair isn’t rocket science and a person of average intelligence can read the directions on the bottle. If they can’t read or follow directions, there are Immortal Fish out there to do the job for them.
One thing I have learned is a professional license doesn’t necessarily mean competence whether we’re talking about hair care, health care, engineering or law.
Many of the Licensing requirements come from a group of Businesses that perform “some” service and wish to limit competition by requiring new upstarts to comply with onerous regulations, while grandfathering in themselves. They lobby their State Reps & Senators and the Agencies that license businesses. Sooner or later they have government giving them an unfair, but lucrative advantage. It’s government folks, anyway to fleece the Businesses or individuals.
I have cut my own hair for 10 years now. A barber needing a license is ridiculous.
come from a line of barbers … GGraddad was a barber (started his own shop), Grandad was a barber (carried on the family business), dad was a barber (part-time … sold the business) … wasn’t my cup of tea … (although She Who Must Be Obeyed got her barber license back in the late ’70’s & still, to this day, cuts my pate)
… all of them licensed by the state … to perform tonsillectomies’, leeching’s & other assorted head, scalp & oral hygienics (including tooth extractions & gum scraping)
‘cutting hair’ is/was a small part of ‘barbering’ … anyone can operate a Flubby … another ‘art’ lost to ‘progress’ …. “it’s just cutting hair!”
… just ask ‘Theodoric the Barber of York’ …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edIi6hYpUoQ
@cato
“Many of the Licensing requirements come from a group of Businesses that perform “some” service and wish to limit competition by requiring new upstarts to comply with onerous regulations, while grandfathering in themselves.”
Not the case in our state. Everyone is subjected to state regulations, even the chains. I assure you that regulations were onerous no matter your standing. We knew folks that were employed by chains due to our hiring process and thus were familiar with related requirements.
A license meant you had access to products not available to common people off the street. It ensured you paid taxes. It ensured you didn’t screw someone up. It’s not unlike a contractor license for your home repairs. If they screwed up, you could attack their license for recompense. Not so with NH and the hair biz now. God bless their hearts.
Hey, if you have no genetic cowlicks, you only need a high and tight, and you’re like Brad, great, that’s easy to pull off. Good for you! Maybe a Flowbee is all someone like Brad needs. That warrants a Christian Bale style “Good for you!” More power to you if you have zero maintenance requirements. Not everyone is genetically built that way. Good luck getting quality hair service from your neighbor if your needs vary. Maybe, just maybe, they might get it right before long.