A04415 - All MAs must be licensed

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[paw]

All,

New York has just passed A04415 (http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=A04415&sh=t). This will

requiring the commissioner of education to promulgate rules and regulations for the licensure of martial arts instructors and schools
.....
Section 1. The commissioner of education is hereby directed within six
months of the effective date of this act to require the licensure of
martial arts instructors and of any school, institution, organization,
business or other entity which offers martial arts instruction and to
promulgate rules and regulations necessary for such purpose.
S 2. This act shall take effect immediately.

On other forums, there has been great concern that the committee will establish an "official" list of martial arts/styles and anyone wanting to train something not on the list is out of luck. Will this happen? No one knows. Right now, the committee (http://assembly.state.ny.us/comm/?sec=mem&id=20) has no guidelines or details determined.

I urge those who live and train in New York to educate themselves on this issue. And speaking for myself, please post if you could use a hand.

FYI, this topic is also at The Aikido Journal Forum (http://65.119.177.201/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=9&t=001668)

Regards,

Paul

[DaveO]

Yeee; the Government dips its nasty hand in again!

On the surface; it could be considered a good idea: Regulating the operation of places that teach the use of violence. In practice; it's a death sentence for many clubs; fees will be required; new procedures drawn up by people who have no idea about the MA in the first place; inspectors, audits, etc.

I don't know how things work in the States; but you can bet these fees will not be cheap; procedures are likely to be stringent - and many are likely to be impossible to conform to - there goes a few good clubs right there.

Get one disgruntled student to report 'violations' of procedure - there goes another few clubs.

Face it; it's not the 'good' clubs that will survive under this rule; it'll be the ones with the most income.

[akiy]

If I remember correctly, a similar law was introduced in New Jersey. A web search reveals it was A2571 back in 1999. I don't remember if it were passed, but here's a good page on its opposition by Diane Skoss on the KoryuBooks.com site:

http://www.koryubooks.com/maila/maila.html

I believe France, at least, has all martial arts (including aikido) under government supervision.

-- Jun

[happysod]

Paul,

Are letters against from non-NY people of any use? If so, please give me an email/address to send to as this is seriously scary, especially for the UK as we have a history under "New Labour" of adopting any ban that the US brings into force.

Jun, as regards France, unfortunately there's no real comparison. France has a long and admirable method when dealing with civil laws, put them on the law-books but forget about them when they clash with common-sense/human nature when it comes to enforcing them. Unfortunately the US and the UK have a long tradition of passing laws, trying to enforce them even if they're ludicrous and never really taking them off the statutes.

[paw]

Ian,
Are letters against from non-NY people of any use?
I hope not (I'm not from NY myself). I suspect that a thoughtful and polite letter wouldn't hurt.

Regards,

Paul

[DGLinden]

After all the hair-slitting I suspect it will ammount to no more than a way to extract a tax base from a non-tax producing revenue source. We've seen this kind of thing when they decided to do this with real estate appraisers, locksmiths, beauticians etc.

Don't worry. Its the government, after all.

[rachmass]

hey, I'm a real estate appraiser (long-time, before licensing), and all that licensing did for us is diminish the quality of the work product and set a low bar. If licensing happens with MA, I certainly hope it won't go the way of appraising!

[deepsoup]

Jun, as regards France, unfortunately there's no real comparison. France has a long and admirable method when dealing with civil laws, put them on the law-books but forget about them when they clash with common-sense/human nature when it comes to enforcing them. Unfortunately the US and the UK have a long tradition of passing laws, trying to enforce them even if they're ludicrous and never really taking them off the statutes.
True, true.

It certainly sounds like very bad news for NY.

Also unlike us, France has a long and admirable history of making state funding available for martial arts. I believe they have some wonderful municipal dojos over there. (I heard some stuff about this through Russell Eberhart, formally the chief instructor of the Peterborough Aikido Club, and currently living in France, funnily enough. :))

The proposed law sounds like something that came into force in Brazil a while ago, though I think the Brazilian law was rather draconian. I vaguely remember the late, great Ubaldo Alcantara posting about it.

(If it was on this forum, his posts should still be in the archive.)

Sean

x

[Dan Rubin]

It appears to me that on February 13 a New York State Assemblyman proposed a bill that has to do with education, and so it was referred to the New York State Assembly Committee on Education, for consideration. If that committee approves it, the entire Assembly will get to vote on it. If it passes that vote, then the State Senate will get a chance to vote on it. If the Senate passes the bill, then the Governor has to sign it for it to become law.

It's a long way from becoming law, and there's plenty of time for New York martial arts schools to voice their concerns.

Dan Rubin