EDITORIAL: Business must remain wary of stupid regs

Few businesses have escaped the snare of bureaucratic red tape.|Oppressive regulation adds time and money to projects in every industry, and while many regulations serve a useful purpose, some are downright silly.
Consider a state law that requires fertilizer applicators to pay a $5 registration fee with the state. The state is evaluating whether the fee is unnecessary, though regulators can’t say why it was imposed in 1977.
Consider also that state regulators contemplated requiring tanning-bed facilities to have customers sign a document detailing the health risks of tanning beds. Tanning salons would have had to keep those forms on file for three years.
The good news is that the fertilizer registration fee might be headed out the door, and the tanning-bed requirement never made it in the door.
That’s thanks largely to the Office of Regulatory Reform, a state agency established in 1981 to assist businesses statewide, both in reforming existing regulations and in preventing unwise regulations from arising in the first place.
The office recently conducted a public forum at Morgan Community College in Fort Morgan, explaining what it does and seeking input from citizens on regulatory battles that might be fought.
One recent victory for the office involved Colorado’s burgeoning bed-and-breakfast industry. For years, towns and cities statewide required bed and breakfast owners to obtain liquor licenses if they planned to offer complimentary alcoholic beverages.
With help from the Office of Regulatory Reform, a new state law created a simplified, inexpensive procedure for the establishments to follow.
Two things are clear from these efforts: One is that business has a friend in the Office of Regulatory Reform. The other is that government bureaucrats have yet to reach the limit in their idiotic impositions on business.|