State board is fine
with new rules
for hair braiders
Ken Kirkpatrick was just as surprised as anybody watching the news one night in April. That’s when a group of hair braiders and the Institute for Justice launched a lawsuit against the state board that licenses barbers and cosmetologists. He’s been a member of the barber examiners board for 26 years.
In a press conference announcing the lawsuit, lead plaintiff Lilian Anderson spoke out against licensing rules applying to hair braiders, in Anderson v. Minnesota Board of Barber and Cosmetologist Examiners. “Free the braiders” was the rallying cry carried on the newscasts that evening.
Anderson and her attorneys, from the Minnesota chapter of the Institute for Justice, were protesting the requirement that braiders get licensed through the state after taking 10 months of courses, costing up to $14,000, none of which included instruction in braiding.
Says Kirkpatrick about the press conference and the regulators that the braiders were protesting: “I was watching it on TV. I said, ‘What moron is doing that?’ When we were served with the suit the next day, turns out I was the moron.”
In June the board agreed to change the rules, exempting braiders from the licensing requirements effective as of late July. In return, the lawsuit was stayed. “This is the best news for braiders since I opened my store in 1998,” says Anderson, owner of Extensions Plus in Minneapolis.
She and attorney Lee McGrath, executive director of the Institute for Justice in Minneapolis, call the agreement a victory for small-business owners. (See Anderson’s full story on page 64.)
Kirkpatrick says the state board governing barbers took responsibility for cosmetologists, too, in March 2005, and the barber board hadn’t known about the braiders’ complaint.
Now braiders will be regulated by the city in which they do business, and Kirkpatrick says that’s fine with him as long as the sanitation is adequate..
Kirkpatrick’s board is not getting lax, however. He says it has added four inspectors to check up on licensed salons and shops. ‘There are a lot of unlicensed shops,” Kirkpatrick says. “I’d like to see the I-Team go into nail shops. You should see when inspectors visit the nail shops. 10 people run out the back door.”
Lilian Anderson, Extensions Plus: 612.721.2121
Ken Kirkpatrick, Minnesota Board of Barber & Cosmetologist Examiners: 612.616.2600
