Is there NOTHING they won’t try to meddle with, micromanage, and regulate unto ruination?
In a very California story, inter-union drama appears to be marring the introduction of a bill that would require porn stars to get business licenses.
On Tuesday, Assemblymembers Lorena Gonzalez (D–San Diego) and Christina Garcia (D–Bell Gardens) introduced Assembly Bill (A.B.) 2389. The bill would require adult entertainers and video performers, including webcam performers, to obtain a business license and complete a state-mandated training course before being allowed to ply their trade.
Requirements for that training would be developed by the state’s Department of Industrial Relations (DIR), which would, in turn, be advised by a new 10-member, governor-appointed board composed of two adult film actors, three dancers, two medical doctors, a therapist, and a money manager.
This training will be a minimum of two hours and will provide information on reporting workplace injuries, sexual harassment, and sex trafficking. Adult performers would be required to cover the cost of this training. The bill would also require that they be finger-printed.
The creation of licensure requirements gives state regulators the authority to police the behavior of participants in what is often a pretty informal industry. Reason recently covered how police in Florida have conducted sting operations on handymen as part of their enforcement of that state’s contractor licensing laws.
As Reason’s Elizabeth Nolan Brown has covered extensively, sex workers have plenty of reasons to be apprehensive about the expansion of the regulatory state.
It’s true also that regulatory seeds, once planted, tend to grow. It’s conceivable that the bill’s current two-hour training requirement could be expanded to become more onerous over time.
“Conceivable”? You must be joking; it’s INEVITABLE. The “training requirement” will grow exponentially…as will the licensing fees, the regulations and restrictions, the taxes, the paperwork, the headaches and hassles, and of course the bureaucracy required to administer and oversee it all. It will ALL “expand”—until the point at which no one wants to be in the industry anymore because it just isn’t worth the bother is reached.
At which point a grim milestone of sorts will have been achieved in the Land of the (gag) “Free”: against all odds, Almighty Government will have effectively destroyed the porn and titty-bar industry. Whodathunkit?
Update! Anybody seeing a pattern here?
The same San Diego area assemblywoman who brought you the job-killing AB 5, which kills freelance jobs, is back to finish off the “adult” freelance industry.
The adult workers are gobsmacked that the state has involved itself in their business— and presumes to train them in order to get a license for a job they’re already doing, while being forced to pay for it all.
Then, once the goobermint has “fixed” all the problems, they can get busy “fixing” all the problems their previous “fixing” caused. Lather, rinse, repeat, forever and ever amen. Y’know, like with Obamacare.
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“The “training requirement” will grow exponentially…as will the licensing fees, the regulations and restrictions, the taxes, the paperwork, the headaches and hassles, and of course the bureaucracy required to administer and oversee it all. It will ALL “expand”—until the point at which no one wants to be in the industry anymore because it just isn’t worth the bother is reached.”
I’m surprised the California university system hasn’t already offered PhD’s in pornography and prostitution. Of course, it would only be for gay men and lesbian women. Otherwise, it would be toxic masculinity and perpetuation of male dominance and the patriarchy. I guess “porn of color” would be allowed, too.