Public golf courses, massage therapy and indoor tanning are not exactly the most pressing or publicized issues in the state legislature.
But don’t diminish the importance of new regulations to a golf course owner or a massage therapist. For them, these seemingly minor issues could ruin their businesses.
The Connecticut Center of Massage Therapy, Inc. is represented by Betty Gallo & Co. and the past session was spent on the issue of advertising.
“There was an effort to make sure that only licensed massage therapists could use those words in advertising,” said Betty Gallo. “There was some concern on behalf of the client about unlicensed therapists doing so.”
Gallo represents other non-profit institutions that bring with them immediate recognition. Topics like gay rights, pushed by Love Makes A Family, or the efforts of the Connecticut Fair Housing Center were likely already on the minds of legislatures.
But massage therapy?
“It’s really like any other issue because we have to educate people,” said Gallo. “Even if they think they understand it, there are going to be aspects that are not commonly known.”
It was actually relatively easy, she said, to educate people on the massage therapy issues because most people are familiar with it.
“There are a lot of incredibly complicated issues that people couldn’t possible understand and some that aren’t so complicated,” she said.
Lay Of The Land
Alan Deckman, of the TCORS Capitol Group, can sympathize with Gallo’s statement.
On one hand, he represents the Connecticut Association of Privately-Owned Public Golf Courses on a litany of complicated issues. Simultaneously, he lobbies for the New England Trail Riders’ Association and its singular aim at the much-discussed topic of all-terrain vehicles.
For the golf course owners, Deckman said the issues that are followed range from water quality to environmental bills to various property tax measures. At the forefront are tax issues, a subject that Deckman described as “incredibly complicated.”
“The biggest challenges with the golf course owners is the various levels of complexity with the proposals,” he said. “Golf course owners not only pay taxes on their land, equipment and buildings but also a per-hole improvement fee that is pretty arbitrary.”
For example, the improvement fee changes dramatically from town to town and can be different by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“With those issues, I’m really trying to simplify it as much as possible,” said Deckman. “The golf issues are way more convoluted than the ATV issues. It’s a combination of educated advocacy and understanding to answer the questions [legislators] might have.”
For the trail riders’ association, there were 12 different bills proposed during the last session that in some way pertained to them, specifically dealing with all-terrain vehicles and whether universal registration was necessary.
House Bill 7277, which would have required universal registration, died in the Transportation Committee and the issue remains undecided going into the new session.
“It really looked at the beginning of the session that there was some momentum and there would be a resolution,” said Deckman. “Things get pretty crazy towards the end and it just got lost.”
The Dark Side
The Washington D.C.-based Indoor Tanning Association has secured the Kowalski Group as its lobbyists for laws and regulations that many people may not know exist.
“There are a lot of issues and concerns over the common regulations that tanning salons have to abide by,” said Karen Weeks, with the Kowalski Group. “For example, if it’s connected to a hair salon, there are changes affecting those business that end up affecting the tanning salon.”
Echoing what others said, Weeks believes the key in lobbying for the lesser-known associations and groups is making sure the legislators grasp exactly what the issue is.
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Sean O’Leary is a Hartford Business Journal staff writer.
