There are many ways to break the law in Florida, but until a few weeks ago, I did not know that the list includes the unlicensed practice of interior design.
Interior design.
It's true. If you improperly call yourself an "interior designer," or hold yourself out to the public as one who provides such services for businesses, you have run afoul of Chapter 481, Florida Statutes. A true licensed designer has undergone years of education and training.
There is an outfit that regulates this, the Board of Architecture and Interior Design. Violating the law is a first-degree misdemeanor. It also is punishable by civil fines.
Wait, there's more.
In 2002, under former Gov. Jeb Bush, the state turned over much of the enforcement work to a private law firm in Tallahassee. Since then, the number of cases has increased dramatically, running a little over 500 a year.
This year the firm is being paid $425,239, the cap under the contract, while generating an average of more than $676,000 a year in fines in architect and designer cases.
Many of the cases result from licensed designers turning in violators. They do not like it when just any Tom, Dick or Harriet claims to be an interior designer.
Some cases involve individuals, stereotypical "soccer moms" who decided they had a good eye or who did it in other states. Often they get off with a warning after promising to stop using the title.
Yet even established businesses get in trouble. You can tell your office-supply store, for example, that you want to buy X number of desks. But if you ask for help laying out your office space, that company had better be licensed.
Consider the case of Freedman's Office Furniture in Tampa, a company started and built from scratch by Steve Freedman out of college 27 years ago. Good for him.
Freedman's Web site until recently mentioned, among other things, that it would help plan office space for its clients. Whoops!
"We were totally unaware," Freedman told me. "Which most people are. We immediately came into compliance." Otherwise, he said, he faced a fine of up to $10,000.
You also can hire a licensed interior designer as an officer of the company to fix the problem, but this is not always practical. Easier, usually, just to agree to change wording.
It turns out that interior design is a raging controversy across the nation. The industry association, the American Society of Interior Design, pushes for regulation. Office-furniture makers, distributors and sellers typically fight it.
Florida is one of only a few states that regulate it fully. Some states have rejected the idea. There was an effort in our Legislature last year to cancel that law firm's contract, but it was killed, largely because of the opposition of licensed designers.
By the way, the stated justification is public safety. One claim is that if amateurs are placing desks and such willy-nilly, it could be harder to get out in an emergency. Proper design complies with all building and safety codes.
There is no evidence of this having been an actual problem, but that does not matter. It's like the old joke about the guy selling elephant repellent: If you say, there are no elephants around here, he replies triumphantly: "See?"
Oh, my! I surely do not want to be accused of wanting people to die in unlicensed-interior-design disasters. But I do confess to being skeptical.
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