17 Responses to “Throw-Pillow Fight: The Interior Design Cartel”

1. #1 |  dave smith |  April 2nd, 2009 at 11:33 am

   This is why your local school’s roof leaks. The gov’t is doing stupid stuff like this instead of the important tasks we’ve charged them with.

   They are like Marge Simpson washing the dishes while the house is on fire.

2. #2 |  Nick T |  April 2nd, 2009 at 11:51 am

   Show me the bodies!

   This is classic government-solves-all-problems thinking. I can understand the vague idea that we need to better educate interior designers about safety codes and safer practices, but to require onerous government rules and licensure??

   Why not just set up a certification course over 4 weekends, and then offering continue professional education classes and make people pay for all of that stuff just to put your -ironically terribly designed – logo on their business cards or whatever.

3. #3 |  Whim |  April 2nd, 2009 at 11:55 am

   Thank God for the Institute for Justice.

   IJ has taken on state-licensing nonsensical requirements in a number of areas, like jitneys, hair-braiding, interior design, horse teeth floaters, and attic rat-guards, all areas where their licensed competitors want these capable but unlicensed individuals put out of business.

   For instance, veterinarians want to be the exclusive purveyors of horse teeth floating, and licensed cosmetologists want exclusivity on hair braiding.

   These self-regulated guild entities want to stifle competition and raise prices for their protected cartel members.

   And, they lobby state legislatures to do their bidding for them.

4. #4 |  Ben |  April 2nd, 2009 at 12:06 pm

   While I think this is kinda dumb, there are reasons to know what you’re doing when designing the interior of a structure.

   The people at Cocoanut Grove would have appreciated it, I’m sure.

5. #5 |  Bob |  April 2nd, 2009 at 12:19 pm

   So… How would have using a ‘licensed designer’ at Coconut Grove allowed people to get out the WELDED SHUT doors?

6. #6 |  Ben |  April 2nd, 2009 at 12:32 pm

   So… How would have using a ‘licensed designer’ at Coconut Grove allowed people to get out the WELDED SHUT doors?

   Now maybe the Station fire would be a better example, but if there were safe materials used in the design, the fire wouldn’t have spread anywhere near a quick as it did.

   Being that Cocoanut Grove brought about a huge change in fire regulations, it’s kind of a moot point. But the fact is they had worked very hard to present a specific image of their club and had used unsafe materials to do so.

   Obviously welded shut doors didn’t help, nor did the boarded up plate window or the revolving door main enterance, but the main cause was the decorations basically exploding in flame.

7. #7 |  Ben |  April 2nd, 2009 at 12:32 pm

   BTW, I’m just playing devil’s advocate here.

8. #8 |  Mike Leatherwood |  April 2nd, 2009 at 1:10 pm

   In one of my many previous occupations, I serviced standby generators. Some of these generators were powered by natural gas, propane or butane. A licensed plumber always did the hook up from the generator to the gas line as well as a licensed electrician did the hook up on the electrical end. However, because I adjusted the gas flow to the generator (by way of turning a valve or adjusting a set screw on a gas regulator), I was required to be certified by the Texas Railroad Commision to do so. I was required (either annually or biannually) to pass a very long test (of which had nothing to do with the work I was doing). It was ridiculous. Did that state licensing make me safer? Did it make us more informed? No…(By the way, the fee was hefty for the test…nothing but a state money-grab)

9. #9 |  MacK |  April 2nd, 2009 at 1:48 pm

   This video is spot on for a story I read this morning.

   Seems a grandmother, daughter, and granddaughter were all arrested for prostitution. Grandma ran the “Joyful Massage” as a front for her Craigs listed home brothel.

   Here is the best part of the article though. “Right now, they face one misdemeanor count of prostitution each. They could be charged with providing massage without a license which happens to be a greater charge.”

   Yes it is true rubbing the shoulders unlicensed is a bigger crime, then rubbing Mr. Limpy to a happy ending is.

   http://www.kutv.com/content/news/local/story/Grandmother-and-Family-Charged-in-Prostitution/kZlBlu4lq0Sronda4zbCXw.cspx?rss=991

10. #10 |  Dave Krueger |  April 2nd, 2009 at 2:09 pm

    After we get rid of laws requiring licenses for interior design, we can scrap the laws that regulate the medical industry and watch costs fall and quality of service skyrocket.

    Nah, just kidding. I’m pretty sure that’s one solution to the rising cost of health care you’ll never see in this country. Our health care problems will ultimately be solved elsewhere. Probably India. Unless government intervenes (for our own good, of course).

11. #11 |  Aresen |  April 2nd, 2009 at 2:12 pm

    But…but…but..

    Then some people might actually have bead curtains in their houses or Elvis-on-velvet paintings on the walls! Imagine the horror of a red-and-green pillow on a purple slipcover!

    We have to protect people from this!

    ;)

12. #12 |  Boyd Durkin |  April 2nd, 2009 at 2:48 pm

    We’re a nation of morons!

    If the state licenses them, and they do something that makes me dead like a dirt nap…do I get to sue the state?

    Why the flip not?!

    I’ll now go get a pedicure from my neighbor in NH. What…illegal?!

    Maybe I can at least pump my own gas in Oregon. No?

13. #13 |  Nick T |  April 2nd, 2009 at 3:25 pm

    Ben,

    In response to your devil’s advocacy, keep in mind that open-to-the-public and private structures have enormous incentive to make sure they are safely decorated. Especially clubs and restaurants and the like, they will get sued to hell or fined like crazy (or shutdown) if they are not up to code or not safe. The station fire is not a good example unless you can say that an unlicensed decorator put the sound foam on the ceiling – and even then the main problem was the unauthorized use of pyrotechnics.

    What licensure likely does is encourage people to not pay the artificially inflated prices to hire a licensed decorator and do it themselves, and THAT’s far more likely to be less safe. Why do you have to be licensed to adhere to safety standards, and why undermine a business owner’s leverage to negotiate a guarantee that the decorating will be up to code by limiting his options of decorators?

14. #14 |  Tim C |  April 2nd, 2009 at 3:46 pm

    “The public has a right to know, when they hire an interior designer, that they are hiring a qualified professional”??? What about when they hire a politician?

15. #15 |  Tim C |  April 2nd, 2009 at 3:54 pm

    Ah, and as far as licensing for anything else – let’s take electrical contractor, for example. In theory, the license they carry says they can do the work and your building won’t burn down, or electrocute you. Great in principle, sort of. Now then, who do we trust to do the license? Ok, government, because they’re impartial. A) ha on that. B) you expect the gov’t, in all its competence, to do this correctly, be completely reliable, etc?

    This is why I argue that the gov’t doing any such thing is BS – medical, FAA, whatever. Simply make liability law/enforcement thereof very stringent – you screw up, you’re in big trouble (similarly, I argue that drunk driving in itself is not a crime, just penalties should be so draconian that you won’t consider screwing up driving, for whatever reason)(and, eliminate liability cases where the consumer was obviously negligent, say spliced into your competent wiring and caused issue themselves).

    So, in this case, even if the ID is “designing the interior of a structure” (#4)(i.e, involved in an area where architectural/structural engineering knowledge might be required), I say gov’t licensing ain’t the answer – and never is.

16. #16 |  KBCraig |  April 2nd, 2009 at 7:40 pm

    Of course they must be licensed to protect the public! After all, licensed plumbers never do shoddy work, licensed barbers and beauticians never give bad haircuts, and licensed doctors never kill anyone through malpractice!

    oh… wait.

17. #17 |  Mario |  April 3rd, 2009 at 8:00 am

    Presumably, it would be a crime if someone’s living room weren’t fabulous.

    (I wish that were my line, but it’s not.)

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