You may have seen teeth-whitening kiosks in malls. They have been the target of the North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners, which went to court to prevent them from operating without a state license. The board claims teeth whitening businesses are dentists. The FTC said no they’re not. The state board didn’t give up in trying to squelch these businesses from competing in the free market of services.
The board filed an appeal, but judges in the U.S. Court of Appeals in the Fourth Circuit in Richmond denied the appeal, ruling in part, “We affirm the FTC’s mode of analysis and find that its conclusion that the Board’s behavior was likely to cause significant anticompetitive harms is supported by substantial evidence.
As JLF’s Jon Sanders has written, occupational licensing is, in some cases, meant to simply protect an industry from competition. And North Carolina has roughly 50 licensing boards.
