Latest news with #tourguides
Yahoo
31-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
You Shouldn't Need a License to Talk
Americans like licenses. People think they make us safer. We license drivers. We license dogs. But most government licensing is useless. Or harmful. It limits competition, raises costs, leaves consumers with fewer choices, and blocks opportunity for people who want to work. Michelle Freenor, a tour guide in Savannah, Georgia, gets good reviews from customers. But her business almost didn't get off the ground because local politicians said, "No one can be a tour guide without first getting a government license!" Bill Durrence, a Savannah alderman at the time, told me why it's important. "I hear a lot of tour guides saying things that make me cringe. The licensing and testing I thought was a good idea just to make sure people had the accurate information." While they were at it, the politicians added other requirements. Anyone who wanted to give tours had to get a criminal background check, which included urine and blood samples, take a physical fitness test, pay fees to the city, and pass a difficult history test. "A college level history exam with tons of obscure, gotcha questions," Freenor told me. "It could be three to five months of studying and studying. It was 120 pages!" Ironically, the test asked no questions about subjects covered by the most popular Savannah tours—ghost tours and Forrest Gump tours (the movie's bench scenes were filmed in Savannah). Freenor complained to a city official: "There's no ghost questions on this test!" His response: "Ghosts aren't real." Why would a city pass rules that block people merely from speaking? "The city was making a nice amount of money for people failing this," said Freenor. When I confronted Alderman Durrence about this, he admitted, "There were a couple of points that maybe went a little too far in the licensing process. Having to have the physical exam periodically. Maybe the cost of the test." But he's a big fan of regulation. "Little by little," he said, "we've managed to get control of some things, but we still don't have control over a lot." What? They control much too much! With the help of the libertarian law firm the Institute for Justice (I.J.), Freenor sued Savannah and won. Now Savannah has no licensing rule. Washington, D.C., killed its rule after I.J. sued, too. I.J. also won in Philadelphia and Charleston, where a court ruled that the rules were unconstitutional because, as I.J. attorney Robert McNamara put it, "The First Amendment protects your right to speak for a living, whether you're a journalist, a comedian, or a tour guide." Good point. My point is we don't need most of these complex consumer protection laws. Competition alone protects customers. Freenor says it well: "The free market is taking care of itself. Bad tour companies don't last." Exactly. A competitive market helps consumers much more than licensing laws ever will. If such laws were once needed (they weren't), they definitely aren't needed now that the internet exists, because it's so easy for consumers to learn about what's good and what's not. But politicians always want more control over us. Eight years have passed since the Institute for Justice fought Freenor's case. Despite their victories in court, cities like New Orleans and my home New York City still have tour guide licensing rules. New York guides are told to pass a 150-question exam. Many tour guides ignore the rules, knowing bureaucrats are not likely to enforce them. That expands the "illegal" underground economy, inviting actual harm. Government's rules almost always have nasty unintended consequences. Licensing bureaucrats should regulate much less. We're supposedly free people. It should be up to us how we spend our money. COPYRIGHT 2025 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC. The post You Shouldn't Need a License to Talk appeared first on Solve the daily Crossword
New York Times
30-07-2025
- New York Times
In Kamchatka, Epicenter of the Russian Earthquake, Seismic Activity Is Common
The Kamchatka Peninsula is so known in Russia for its wilderness and lack of communication links that it has become a byword for 'remote.' An earthquake shook the peninsula, a remote region in Russia's Far East, on Wednesday. Little damage was reported from the quake, which arose in the Pacific Ocean about 90 miles from the peninsula's capital, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Unlike Turkey and Syria, countries that have been devastated by earthquakes in recent years, Kamchatka is sparsely populated — and the Soviet-era housing there typically has only one or two stories. Many houses are fortified with metal rods designed to withstand the tremors that are common in the region. The population, about 300,000, is mostly concentrated in three big towns in the south of the peninsula, including Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Moving around Kamchatka is difficult: The peninsula has just a few hundred miles of paved roads, mostly around major towns, and there are no roads to cross the swampland separating it from the mainland. Kamchatka has become a popular destination for tourism in recent years, with travel companies offering camping, helicopter rides and off-road tours for the visitors to see the volcanoes or admire the pristine forests and rivers. Several local tour guides on Wednesday morning posted videos from campsites or bungalows shaken by the earthquake. Residents are no strangers to tremors: Seismic activity in the peninsula is common. Kamchatka is home to more than 300 volcanoes, about 30 of them active, and several erupt every year. The earthquake Wednesday also affected the Kuril Islands near Kamchatka, which are also sparsely populated. Many of the people on the four islands, which are claimed by Japan, left after the fall of the Soviet Union. A tour guide in the Kuril Islands, Yelena Kotenko, posted a video of tourists running out screaming from a two-story building as tiles rained down from its roof. The tourists went up the side of a volcano while a tsunami was rising on the coast, she said.
BreakingNews.ie
22-07-2025
- Politics
- BreakingNews.ie
OPW bans green and orange colours from Battle of the Boyne site
The Office of Public Works (OPW) has banned tour guides from wearing green or orange clothing at the site in Meath where the Protestant King William III defeated the Catholic King James II in the Battle of the Boyne. The location is of particular significance to unionists, as William's victory in 1690 established Protestant dominance in Ireland and is commemorated by the Orange Order with a series of marches on July 12th each year. Advertisement The rule prohibiting guides from wearing green or orange at the Battle of the Boyne visitor centre is not contained in the official OPW Guide Handbook, which is supplied to guides and information officers at heritage sites. Instead, the directive is being communicated directly to new guides by a supervisor at the visitor centre after they have been hired, according to emails released under freedom of information laws. The instruction, which is believed to be aimed at respecting the sensitivities of both unionist and nationalist visitors, is not the only unusual dress-code directive issued by the OPW to its guides. A section of the handbook dealing with clothing and uniform requirements specifies that 'nudity is prohibited at all sites'. Asked why it was considered necessary to include this in its dress code for new tour guides, the OPW declined to comment. Advertisement The Battle of the Boyne visitor centre was developed following the allocation of €15 million of government funding in 2005. Last year, a further €10 million was provided for the centre under the Shared Island initiative. The site was famously chosen as the venue for Ian Paisley's first official meeting as Stormont's first minister with Bertie Ahern in 2007. The then-Taoiseach presented the DUP leader with a musket used in the Battle of the Boyne. Ireland Irish Prison Service urged for halt of extra court... Read More An email titled 'Welcome aboard' sent by a supervisor to a newly hired seasonal guide last year contained details of the dress code for staff at the visitor centre. It prohibits items including army jackets and clothes that feature 'slogans, badges or emblems'. The email stated that 'green and orange are not permitted on site'. The OPW provides an annual allowance for guides where colour-coded clothing is mandated by local management. This is payable at a rate of €210 for permanent guides, and €100 for seasonal workers. The OPW declined to comment when asked about the prohibition of green and orange clothing at the Battle of the Boyne site.
