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Should your hairdresser or barber need a license? Maybe.
Jenny Coleman, a hair stylist and licensed cosmetologist, cut a client's hair at her salon in Clayton on Jan. 30, 2024. (Credit: Jenny Coleman/Salon 259)
ATLANTA — Three bills aimed at making it easier for beauticians and barbers to bypass licensing requirements and get to work are moving through the Legislature. They face pushback from some lawmakers and industry professionals concerned about safety.
On Monday Sen. Larry Walker III, R-Perry, presented a bill that would exempt some beauty industry professionals from needing a license to work, including those who shampoo, blow-dry and braid hair, and makeup artists. It does not cover people who cut and color hair, or who use lasers and other chemical processes on hair, nails and skin.
Noting that “there has to be a compelling public safety or welfare interest” for the government to require a license that impedes a person’s “freedom to work,” Walker said the Senate Occupational Licensing Study Committee he chaired last year found that cosmetology is among those industries in the state with “some pretty onerous licensing requirements that really are a burden more heavily borne really by the working class in Georgia.”
While makeup artists who work in department stores or on film sets are not required to have a license, said Walker, “if you are a Georgian, an entrepreneur who wants to start a business, a single mom trying to help lift your family out of poverty, we require 1,100 hours of experience and $17,000 for a cosmetology class.” He noted that is 10 times what it takes to get a license to be an emergency medical technician.
Esthetician and master cosmetologist licenses require at least 1,000 and 1,500 clock hours, respectively, of classroom training. EMT licenses require 150 hours.
Several Republican senators lauded Walker’s Senate Bill 354 for slashing red tape and promoting free enterprise.
But Sen. Sonya Halpern, D-Atlanta, said she and 30 salon owners she had talked to about the bill have “significant reservations” about exempting those beauty professionals from licensure and government oversight, primarily for health and safety reasons.
“The beauty industry is more than just about looking good,” said Halpern. “Outside of medical professionals, chiropractors and massage therapists, this is the only other industry where the practitioners’ job requires them to touch your body,” she said.
Halpern said makeup artists “need to have a solid understanding of skin health, and know how to keep their tools clean and safe.” And shampooing and blow-drying professionals “need to understand the right way to untangle your hair without causing damage,” she said, noting that “those specializing in styling with a hair blower, flat iron or curling iron” must be trained to avoid burning and damaging the hair, skin and scalp of their clients. “They also need to know about scalp health and be mindful of conditions like psoriasis and dermatitis that can worsen with the products they use or spread on to the next customer.”
Halpern said she was drafting an alternate bill that would reduce the amount of training required for makeup artists to 300 credit hours and blow-dry artists to 500 credit hours, “so that they can in fact get the knowledge that they need on the sanitation, hygiene and sterilization.”
Walker returned to the Senate well and posited that the industry professionals who oppose the bill “put in their time, and they want the next person to have to put in theirs. Or they're benefiting from interns that are having to fulfill the 1,500-hour work requirement and they're paying little or nothing and they're getting free labor off these people.”
Noting that “five states have exempted blow dry artists and 13 states have released makeup artists from licensure,” Walker said, adding that “there's no evidence that these services are any less safe” in those places. “And if I go somewhere and get burned, well, I'm not going back. I mean, let's talk about personal accountability.”
Afterwards the Senate voted 38-15 to pass the bill, which now moves to the House for consideration.
Legalizing mobile barbers
Two other cosmetology-related bills were discussed on Monday during the House Regulated Industries Occupational & Professional Licensing subcommittee meeting.
Rep. Al Williams, D-Midway, presented House Bill 650, which would allow licensed barbers to operate mobile barber shops.
“This is probably the last activity that’s not mobile,” said Williams. “You can give blood, you can go to the dentist, see the doctor, do x-rays, and most importantly, you can buy food out of a mobile truck. But you cannot get a haircut.”
Mobile barbers would be subject to the same safety and sanitary requirements under his bill as barbers operating in fixed locations, said Williams, and “subject to the same rules of inspection.”
Tony West, state director of Americans for Prosperity Georgia, said his organization supported the bill.
“We think this will lead to more entrepreneurship, more small business growth, and maybe some communities getting their hair cut who have trouble getting to a brick and mortar barber shop,” he said.
Kay Kendrick, a salon owner who is chair of the Georgia Cosmetology and Barbers Licensing Board, said she had “a lot of concerns” about the board being able to properly oversee mobile barbers.
Noting that the board has 12 inspectors and that there are 97,000 cosmetology and barbering licensees in Georgia, she said, “There is no way we can govern if we have them going all over the state.”
Kendrick said her inspectors catch illegal activity and unsafe practices every day at the facilities they inspect, including salons that employ unlicensed, sometimes undocumented workers, that don’t properly disinfect tools and commit other safety violations. She noted that the board recently revoked the license of a cosmetology school in the Augusta area for using “illegal tools and injecting off-market Botox into clients, including children.”
Kendrick said it is particularly important for barbers to have hot and cold running water to wash their hands and to disinfect tools.
Williams said he was “willing to do anything to work with the concerns” of the cosmetology board, noting that no mobile barber shop would be allowed to operate “unless it has a built-in generator for hot water — that’s standard.”
He said that mobile food trucks have been able to satisfy state inspectors for years now, and added, “If I can buy a hot dog, I can’t get a haircut?”
“I agree,” said the Regulated Industries Occupational & Professional Licensing subcommittee chair Jason Ridley, R-Chatsworth. “Maybe we need to form some rules in there about what you’ve got to have, how many people can work in it. Let’s keep working on it.”
Allowing interstate cosmetology licensing
Rep. Sandra Scott, D-Atlanta, then presented House Bill 154, to be known as the Cosmetology Licensure Compact, which would create a multistate agreement to allow cosmetologists licensed in one of seven or more states, including Georgia, to practice in any of those states without being required to seek an additional license or training.
The cosmetology compact “is one of several interstate compacts in various professions aiming to facilitate mobility and consistency in occupational licensing,” said Scott.
So far, Alabama, Arizona and Kentucky have already enacted legislation to join the interstate cosmetology compact. Officials in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida are currently working on legislation to join it, said Keith Buckhout, a researcher with the Council of State Governments who co-presented with Scott. Once at least seven states have signed on, the compact would go into effect.
In order to be eligible for the compact, Buckhout said, states must require applicants to pass a competency exam, satisfy basic education and training requirements for cosmetology, and conduct a criminal history or license discipline history background check on applicants. The specifics on those requirements would be hashed out by a commission overseeing the compact. Such information collected on licensees would be kept in a national database.
“We can find out everything we need to know about” cosmetologists who participate in the compact, including “whether they’re legal in their state, so we can stop some of the identity theft with stealing people’s licenses and names, which happens quite often,” said Kendrick, who is in favor of the bill.
Several Georgia cosmetologists and salon owners spoke in support of the cosmetology compact, including Greg Thomas, who said he owns 62 Great Clips salons in Georgia, South Carolina, Florida and Alabama. Thomas said the 6- to 8-week delays in getting back to work that many beauticians face when they move to Georgia while waiting for a new license to be approved cause unnecessary economic hardship.
“We should all do what we can to let these stylists put food on the table,” he said.
Learning of the proposed cosmetology-related legislation on Monday, Jenny Coleman, a salon owner in Clayton who has been a licensed cosmetologist for 33 years, said she would be opposed to exempting any beauty professionals from “basic sanitation and hygiene training.”
“You never know what someone is going to come in with,” she said. “You don’t want to spread fungus, rashes, dermatitis. We really do have to be careful. This is a profession. It’s not for fun. It’s a bit more clinical than people realize. If the state doesn’t regulate this, it’s going to be a mess.”
Regarding the proposed interstate cosmetology compact, she said it could be a boon to salon owners like herself located in the tri-state area in northeast Georgia near the borders of South Carolina and North Carolina. “I think it would be a great boost to business for us to be able to work across state lines,” she said.
Ridley said his subcommittee is likely to further discuss, debate and vote on the mobile barbering and cosmetology compact bills in the next week or two.
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House speaker Jon Burns hires new communications director
House speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, announced today that he has hired a new communications director. Kayla Roberson, who has served as press secretary at the Georgia Chamber for the past year or so, will now oversee all external communications, media relations and strategic messaging for Burns.
“I’m excited to welcome Kayla to our team,” Burns said in a statement. “Kayla has an excellent background, deep skill set and strong work ethic, and we’re excited to have her on board to continue getting our message out and sharing the House’s priorities ahead of and into the next session.”
A double major in political science and journalism at the University of Georgia, where she graduated in 2022, Roberson interned for U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde, a Republican in north Georgia’s 9th Congressional District, and worked as a consultant for GOP political candidates before joining the Georgia Chamber.
“I’m beyond grateful for the opportunity to work under the leadership of speaker Burns,” Roberson told State Affairs. “Whether it’s improving education opportunities, putting money back in the pockets of hardworking Georgians, creating jobs or supporting our rural communities, speaker Burns always prioritizes doing what is best, and what is right, for Georgia.”
Political strategist Stephen Lawson, who has held the top communications role for the speaker since last December, announced he’s joining Dentons, where starting today he’ll lead the global law firm’s public affairs efforts.
Have questions or comments? Contact Jill Jordan Sieder on X @journalistajill or at [email protected].
Global bird flu disrupts Georgia exports, costing chicken producers millions
ATLANTA — A global bird flu that has rapidly spread from birds to dairy cows, milk supplies and humans has cost untold millions of dollars in lost export business in Georgia, the nation’s leading poultry producer, officials with the state Department of Agriculture and poultry industry said.
Georgia has had only three reported cases of H5N1 avian influenza since it reemerged in 2022. The last of those cases was resolved in November 2023 but ramifications of those outbreaks continue to have a big effect on the state’s ability to export chicken and chicken parts, such as chicken feet, to different countries, including China, one of Georgia’s biggest export markets for chicken feet.
In 2022, frozen chicken feet, for example, accounted for more than 85% of all U.S. poultry exported to China, according to Farm Progress, publisher of 22 farming and ranching magazines.
The $30 billion poultry industry is Georgia’s largest segment in its No. 1 industry — agriculture.
China has also placed a ban on the import of chicken products from 41 other American states. The ban on Georgia products went into effect Nov. 21, 2023. Efforts to reach the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. were unsuccessful.
Georgia Poultry Federation President Mike Giles estimates the state’s loss at “well into the millions of dollars.”
“It’s a significant amount in a significant export market for us,” he said. “Poultry paws [feet] immediately lose value because of the loss of demand.”
The ban has forced Georgia poultry producers to find alternative markets for their products that would normally be headed to China.
“Some are sold domestically, some are frozen and stored, hopefully to find markets later on, and some go to other countries,” Giles said.
This isn’t the first time China has banned U.S.-produced poultry products due to a bird flu outbreak. The country instituted a ban in January 2015 which lasted until November 2019 — even though U.S. poultry products were deemed free of the disease by August 2017.
After that ban was lifted, China’s appetite for American-produced chicken products became voracious.
In 2022, U.S. producers shipped nearly $6 billion in poultry meat and related products (excluding eggs) to over 130 countries. China has emerged as the second largest destination for U.S. poultry exports, increasing from $10 million in 2019 to a record $1.1 billion in 2022, according to Southern Ag Today.
Chicken paws, for instance, are eaten in many Asian countries, including the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and Korea.They can also be found on Chinese dim sum menus throughout the U.S. and are also popular in Jamaica, Trinidad, Russia and Ukraine in everything from soups and curries to fried snacks.
Three Georgia counties have reported H5N1 outbreaks since 2022. The most recent case was late last year. Henry, Sumter and Toombs counties each reported one case of H5N1 bird flu. Those outbreaks are resolved, poultry and state agriculture officials say.
“When HPAI cases are found in any state, that state is given a designation that could lead to foreign countries halting trade on poultry products from that state,” Georgia Department of Agriculture spokesman Matthew Agvent told State Affairs.
Not since 2016 has the United States experienced such a fast-moving case of the H5N1 avian influenza. In the last two months, the virus has spread in parts of the United States from birds to dairy cows, some milk supplies and humans. Two people — a Texas dairy worker and a prison inmate in Colorado who was killing infected birds at a poultry farm — are reported to have caught the virus, according to news reports. The outbreak is the largest in recent history, impacting both domestic poultry and livestock as well as wild birds and some mammal species.
State officials are continuing to monitor the national outbreak and its impact on Georgia.
Georgia’s poultry & egg industry: At A Glance
Annual economic impact: $30.2 billion
Percentage of the Agriculture industry: 58% *
Jobs: 87,900
Counties involved in poultry & egg production: 3 out of 4
National ranking in chicken broiler production: No. 1
Daily production of table eggs: 7.8 million
Daily production of hatching eggs: 6.5 million
Pounds of chicken produced daily: 30.2 million
Pounds of chicken produced annually: 8 billion
Number of chicken broilers processed each day: 5 million
Counties involved in poultry & egg production: 3 out of 4
Source: Georgia Poultry Federation; The Center for Agribusiness & Economic Development, University of Georgia, Ag Snapshots 2024; Georgia Poultry Federation.
Have questions? Contact Tammy Joyner on X @lvjoyner or at [email protected].
Is it safe to eat chicken and eggs and drink milk? Answers to your most pressing questions about the latest bird flu outbreak
A two-year-old strain of bird flu has heightened concerns in Georgia and the rest of the country after the virus recently spread to dairy cows. Here’s what you need to know about the virus and its impact on Georgia and the rest of the country. What are the symptoms of this flu in humans? Eye …
Kemp signs bills on education, health care, taxes
Gov. Brian Kemp signed a slew of bills over the past week or so, including the private school voucher bill long sought by Republicans and a bill that will ease regulations over the construction and expansion of medical facilities in rural areas.
His bill-signing events were clustered into themes: education, health care, military members, human trafficking and Georgia’s coastal communities.
Education
Among the education-related bills Kemp signed was Senate Bill 233, also known as the Georgia Promise Scholarship Act, which provides the families of Georgia students enrolled in underperforming school districts with $6,500 scholarships that can be used toward private school or homeschooling expenses, including tuition, fees, textbooks and tutoring.
“Georgia is affording greater choice to families as to how and where they receive their education, while also continuing our efforts to strengthen public schools, support teachers, and secure our classrooms,” Kemp said, and thanked leadership in the House and Senate for prioritizing passage of the bill, which had failed in a close vote in 2023.
Democrats and many public education advocates who opposed the bill argued it will drain resources from public schools and primarily benefit students from wealthy families.
Kemp also signed Senate Bill 351, sponsored by nine Republican senators, which will require social media companies, as of July 1, 2025, to verify their users are at least 16 years old unless they receive approval from a parent.
House Bill 409, sponsored by Rep. Lauren Daniel, R-Locust Grove, directs school systems to consider not having bus stops where a student would have to cross a roadway with a speed limit of 40 mph or greater. The bill also increases the penalty for passing a stopped school bus to $1,000 from $250.
Kemp noted that Ashley Pierce, the mother of Addy Pierce, an 8-year-old who was fatally struck by a motorist as she boarded her school bus, “passionately advocated for and was instrumental in the passage of this legislation.”
Senate Bill 395, sponsored by Sen. Clint Dixon, R-Gwinnett, states that no school visitor or personnel can be prohibited from possessing an opioid reversal drug such as Narcan and directs schools to maintain a supply. It also allows opioid antagonists to be sold in vending machines and directs certain government buildings to maintain a supply of at least three doses.
Senate Bill 464, also sponsored by Dixon, creates the School Supplies for Teachers Program to financially and technically support teachers purchasing school supplies online. It also creates an executive committee of five voting members within the Georgia Council on Literacy and limits the number of approved literacy screeners to five, one of whom must be available to schools for free.
Health care
The governor chose his hometown of Athens as the venue to sign several bills aimed at improving health care in rural and underserved communities.
Among them was House Bill 1339, sponsored by Rep. Butch Parrish, R-Swainsboro, which revises the Certificate of Need process by which the state determines if and how new medical facilities can be built or expanded. The bill provides for several new exemptions, including psychiatric or substance abuse inpatient programs, basic perinatal services in rural counties, birthing centers and new general acute hospitals in rural counties. It also raises the total limit on tax credits for donations to rural hospital organizations to $100 million from $75 million.
Senate Bill 480, sponsored by Sen. Mike Hodges, R-Brunswick, establishes student loan repayments for mental health and substance use professionals serving underserved youth in the state or in unserved geographic areas disproportionately impacted by social determinants of health.
House Bill 872, sponsored by Rep. Lee Hawkins, R-Gainesville, chair of the House Health and Human Services Committee, expands cancelable loans for certain health care professionals to dental students who agree to practice in rural areas.
Senate Bill 293, sponsored by Sen. Ben Watson, R-Savannah, chair of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, reorganizes county boards of public health and opens the qualifications for the CEO of each county board of health to include either licensed physicians or people with a master’s degree in public health or a related field.
Military members and veterans
Kemp on Wednesday focused on bills to improve military recruitment and provide more work opportunities for veterans and military family members.
House Bill 880, sponsored by Rep. Bethany Ballard, R-Warner Robins, allows spouses of military service members to work under a license they hold in good standing in another state while under the supervision of an existing Georgia medical facility or provider.
Senate Bill 449, sponsored by Sen. Larry Walker, allows military medical personnel to practice for 12 months while a license application is pending, including working as a certified nursing aide, certified emergency medical technician, paramedic or licensed practical nurse. The bill also creates a new advanced practice registered nurse license and makes it a misdemeanor to practice advanced nursing without a license.
Human trafficking
The governor on Wednesday was accompanied by first lady Marty Kemp and other members of the GRACE Commission for the signing of an anti-human trafficking package. It includes Senate Bill 370, which adds certain businesses to the list of organizations that must post human trafficking notices, including convenience stores, body art studios, businesses that employ licensed massage therapists and manufacturing facilities.
Sponsored by Sen. Mike Hodges, R-Brunswick, the bill also allows the Georgia Board of Massage Therapy to initiate inspections of massage therapy businesses and educational programs without notice and requires massage therapy board members to complete yearly human trafficking awareness training.
House Bill 993, sponsored by Rep. Alan Powell, R-Hartwell, creates the felony offense of grooming of a minor and creates new penalties for offenses relating to visual mediums depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
House Bill 1201, sponsored by Rep. Houston Gaines, R-Athens, allows human trafficking survivors who received first offender or conditional discharge status to vacate that status for certain crimes, as long as the crime was a direct result of being a victim of human trafficking.
Coastal communities
Earlier today in Brunswick, Kemp signed legislation impacting Georgia coastal communities, including House Bill 244, which amends the laws around how wild game can be hunted and how seafood dealers operate, and House Bill 1341, which designates white shrimp as the state’s official crustacean.
Taxes
Earlier this month Kemp signed several bills related to taxation, including House Bill 1015, sponsored by Rep. Lauren McDonald, R-Cumming, which lowers the state income tax for tax year 2024 to 5.39%, accelerating a multiyear drop in state income taxes that started at 5.75% in 2023 and will continue through 2029.
The Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget estimates the tax cut acceleration will save Georgia taxpayers approximately $1.1 billion in calendar year 2024 and about $3 billion over the next 10 years.
Kemp also signed House Bill 1021, sponsored by Rep. Lauren Daniel, R-Locust Grove, which increases the state’s income tax dependent exemption to $4,000 from $3,000.
House Bill 581, sponsored by Reps. Shaw Blackmon, R-Bonaire, and Clint Crowe, R-Jackson, enables a constitutional amendment (House Resolution 1022) to let voters decide whether counties can provide a statewide homestead valuation freeze, which limits the increase in property values to the inflation rate.
The governor has until May 7 to sign or veto bills passed during the legislative session that ended on March 28. Those he takes no action on will automatically become law.
Legislation signed by Kemp is posted on the governor’s website.
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Have questions, comments or tips on education in Georgia? Contact Jill Jordan Sieder on X @journalistajill or at [email protected].
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