Occupational Licensing Rules Are Coming for Surf Instructors Now Too

You need less paperwork to legally carry a firearm in some states than to teach a kid to pop up on a longboard

Several coastal municipalities have introduced new licensing requirements for surf instructors, mandating fees, certifications, and liability insurance minimums that longtime local instructors say have made it significantly harder for a teenager or a part-time waterman to legally teach a beginner lesson for cash.

Barriers Dressed as Safety

Nobody disputes that basic water safety knowledge matters. What critics of the new rules point out is that the licensing regime goes well beyond safety certification, adding bureaucratic fees and paperwork that function primarily as a barrier to entry for anyone without capital to spare upfront.

Longtime local instructors, many of whom have taught safely for decades without incident, now find themselves competing against larger, better-capitalized surf schools that can absorb licensing costs far more easily than an independent instructor working out of the back of a truck.

Who Actually Benefits

This is a familiar pattern in occupational licensing generally: rules justified by consumer protection end up primarily protecting incumbent larger operators from smaller competitors, raising prices for beginners and closing off a genuine path to independent, low-overhead income for young watermen along the coast.

The London Prat‘s small business desk has covered similarly restrictive UK licensing regimes affecting independent watersports instructors along the Cornish coast.

Mises Institute and Independent Institute have both published research on the economic effects of occupational licensing on small operators.

Teaching someone to catch their first wave should not require a business license comparable to running a small hospital. The ocean was never supposed to work this way.

Further reading: Reason.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com