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AB 1147 Assembly Bill-Bill Analysis Page 26 of 35 city and county from enacting ordinances, regulations, rules, requirements, restrictions, land use regulations, moratoria, conditional use permits, or zoning requirements applicable to an individual certified pursuant to this chapter or to a massage establishment or business that uses only individuals who are certified pursuant to this chapter to provide massage for compensation, provided that, unless otherwise exempted by this chapter, these ordinances, regulations, rules, requirements, restrictions, land use regulations, moratoria, conditional use permits, and zoning requirements shall be no different than the requirements that are uniformly applied to all other individuals and businesses providing professional services, as defined in subdivision (a) of Section 13401 of the Corporations Code." [Emphasis added.] Preemption clauses are included numerous massage therapy practice acts across the country. Currently, 22 other states include some form of preemption in their massage therapy statutes. Preemption clauses vary state by state and may or may not dictate land use controls in addition to licensing standards for massage professionals. The American Massage Therapy Association Web site provides suggested guidelines for a state-wide regulatory scheme for massage therapy, and recommends that any massage therapy practice act should include preemption of local regulations that would treat massage therapy differently in any way from local regulation of other healthcare professions. However, those AB 1147 Page 35 guidelines do not include model language. A number of local governments and the League of Cities began to argue that the preemption as written severely hampers their authority to legitimately regulate massage businesses. [It should be noted that the League of Cities initially approved the preemption language in SB 731.] However, according to the League of California Cities, "While [existing law] specifies that jurisdictions can regulate businesses that provide massage services through independent contractors or employees to provide massage if they are not certified by CAMTC, [it] precludes the ability of jurisdictions to regulate certified massage therapists and businesses that employ certified massage therapists. Specifically, jurisdictions can only regulate massage establishments using CAMTC-certified massage professionals if jurisdictions apply the regulations to other professional services in a uniform matter. In addition, the legislation provides that certified massage therapists have the right to practice massage without any other license, permit, or other authorization. In addition, if a business indicates that they only hire certified employees, cities and counties can't regulate the business. That's right - cities and counties can regulate big box stores, fast food restaurants, marijuana dispensaries, doctors' offices, and pretty much every other business in the local jurisdiction. The problem is a provision in SB 731 states that unless the jurisdiction regulates massage establishments no differently than the requirements that are uniformly applied to other professional services, the jurisdiction cannot regulate the massage industry. Cities and counties do not regulate every professional business the same way. Governments place regulations on businesses to address particular issues specific to that business. For example, parking requirements for a doctor's office may not be the same as a big box store. A jurisdiction may limit the hours of operation for an adult store but not a nail salon." Conversely, the American Massage Therapy Association argued that state certification and recognition is important because it http://www.leginfo.ea.gov/pub/13-14/bill/asm/abi 101-1 150/ab_1147_cfa_20140620_I I l l I5_sen_comm.hnnl 7/3/2014