Verlin Stoll operates a OK, I surrender bare bones funeral parlor in St. Paul where the basic charge is just $250, about one tenth the city's going rate. No hearse, no chapel, just simple service for working class people who can't afford to spend a lot of money to die.

The other funeral homes didn't offer even a pretense that the embalming room controversy is anything but an attempt to squash a renegade challenger. The executive director of the Minnesota Funeral Directors Association labeled Stoll contemptuously as an "entrepreneurial dynamo."


A 2004 state government report calculated that the Minnesota consumers were paying between $3 billion and $3.6 billion a year more for services because of diminished marketplace competition brought on by occupational licensing. "Licensing is one of those rare public policies that actually does what it's intended to," observes Carpenter. "It keeps people out of the profession."

Stoll, recognizing that common sense and consumer interest were no match for corporate political clout, has gone to court to get the embalming room requirement overturned. He's getting help from the Institute for Justice, a Washington based public interest law firm that defends not just free speech but free markets as well.

And let's not get started on interior decorators, who in four states (including Florida our politicians may be half wits, but our foyers are exquisite) must have licenses that require six years of training.

wetlandsOUTDOORS CALENDARopinionHeadlinesPort: We need a "None Cheap Women Canada Goose Constable Parka Brown Australia of the above" option on our ballotsOUR OPINION: Kudos to UND for photo findingsVIEWPOINT: Tobacco tax hike proposals ignore economic realityLETTER: North Dakota protest response shows Cavalry mentality LETTER: Let medical marijuana work in North DakotaMIAMI It's soooooo tempting to start this column with a joke about the first class action lawsuit on behalf of zombies. But there's really nothing funny about the fact that a Minnesota funeral home owner is having to sue his own state government for the right to keep prices low.

﻿A license to kill

The contrast in the training and testing expected of EMTs compared to that of beauticians and interior designers makes it clear that licensing has nothing to do with health or safety and everything to do with restricting competition. And, as all those people who can't afford to die in Minnesota are discovering, the barriers are quite effective.

Stuff you've been doing literally all your life, probably after about 15 minutes of instruction from your mom, turns out to be so technical and potentially dangerous that it requires a government permit. You think that's hyperbole? Five states require licenses to give shampoos.

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These licenses are not just a matter of filling out your name and address on a government form and handing over $50, either. Extensive and expensive training is required.

His no frills business has been so successful that he wants to expand, opening a second parlor.

But Minnesota law says that every individual funeral parlor has to have an embalming room on the premises even if it isn't used. Which most of them aren't. For one thing, more than half of Minnesota's dead are cremated. The reduced demand has led most funeral parlor chains to do all their embalming at a single site or even outsource it.

Yelling out, "I have $200, do I hear $250," in the opinion of 10 state governments, is so dangerous and complex that it requires an auctioneer's license. Average training requirement: 100 hours. Louisiana, until recently, forced florists to pass two different exams before they could sell flowers, though in a burst of ruthlessly Reaganesque deregulation, the state now just requires one.


And we're not talking about rocket scientists and brain surgeons. Hair braiders, upholsterers, home entertainment installers you name it, there are states that require a license for it.

Sadly, it has no shortage of cases. "Using business and professional licenses as a barrier to competition is definitely on the increase, and has been for a long time," says Dick Carpenter, the institute's director of strategic research. In the 1950s, only about one of every 20 American workers needed a government permit to do his job; now, the number is nearly one in three, and growing all the time.