Chris Storms

I usually come down on the side of the police, but this just rubs me the wrong way. From the Orlando Sentinel on Nov. 7th.

As many as 14 armed Orange County deputies, including narcotics agents, stormed Strictly Skillz barbershop during business hours on a Saturday in August, handcuffing barbers in front of customers during a busy back-to-school weekend.

It was just one of a series of unprecedented raid-style inspections the Orange County Sheriff’s Office recently conducted with a state regulating agency, targeting several predominantly black- and Hispanic-owned barbershops in the Pine Hills area.

What did they find? Hardly anything other than barbers working without a license.

Asked why his unit made arrests for licensing violations, Ogden said: “It was a misdemeanor crime being committed in our presence. We decided to make arrests.”

But many of the barbers who were swept up in the operations are still angry months later.

“They made a big charade about it,” barber Jason Abrams said, “like we were selling drugs or something.”

Of course, if the law says you need to have a license to cut someone’s hair, I guess you need a license to cut someone’s hair.  But, that’s just one of those laws that in my opinion, is based on very little common sense.  And, we certainly shouldn’t be arresting people for it.  Any time government comes in the way of people making an honest living, we have a problem.

I’m the last person to accept the race card from someone who thinks they were treated unfairly, but in this case, I don’t see any other card that can be played.  Are these types of raids happening on Park Avenue?

Am I wrong?