Load Florida. Set to spin. Press start.
That’s what ASID, IIDA and their Florida-based puppet-coalition, IDAF, are doing to try and
wash the truth out of the recent Florida court decision.
In the past several weeks, we have seen concerted efforts to mislead the design community by
misrepresenting the recent court ruling in which a judge struck down the title provision of
Florida’s interior design law and created significant new opportunities for nonlicensees to work
in commercial settings by rewriting the law’s practice restrictions.
That’s supposed to be a “victory” for the pro-regulation cartel? Sorry ASID, IIDA, and IDAF—
that just doesn’t wash. Here are the FACTS:
1. Title Restriction Struck Down—Period.
Before the court’s ruling on February 4, 2010, only state-licensed interior designers were
allowed to use the terms “interior design,” “interior designer,” “space planning,” and other
“words to that effect.” Federal District Judge Robert Hinkle declared that provision
unconstitutional and ordered the state not to enforce it any longer. How significant was that
ruling?
Alleged title violations have always made up the vast majority of enforcement actions brought by
the State Board of Architecture and Interior Design under Florida’s interior design law—about
80-90% since 2002. These cases usually involved a nonlicensee who was lawfully practicing
residential interior design (which is specifically exempted from the practice act) and simply
advertising that fact, accurately, on their business cards, on their website, or in the yellow pages.
The State Board even went after nonlicensees for being identified—again, accurately—as
“interior designers” in newspaper articles and in magazine profiles over which they had no
control! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it was a modern-day witch hunt. Of course, the
effect of the title law (the very deliberate effect, I might add) was to make it as difficult as
possible for potential clients to identify these u