Assemblyman Has a Spot for Dry Cleaning Agency: Out : He Leads Fight to Abolish State Licensing Panel

Assemblyman Ross Johnson, the feisty La Habra Republican who last year waged unsuccessful ballot crusades against welfare costs and political financiers, is at war these days with the state agency that licenses California’s dry cleaning industry.

Johnson thinks he’s “got a shot at” accomplishing something that neither Edmund G. Brown Jr. nor Ronald Reagan could in their tenures as governor: abolishing the 40-year-old state Board of Fabric Care.

Although only one other state--Oklahoma--regulates its dry cleaning industry, the embattled agency has survived five previous legislative efforts aimed at its demise, including one last year.

Again this year, the board and the industry it supposedly regulates are fighting for the board’s survival.

Besides licensing the state’s 3,000 dry cleaning plants and 3,500 dry cleaning shops, the board tests and licenses various operators and specialists who work in them. In addition, the agency has ultimate responsibility to periodically inspect those establishments to ensure that consumers are not exposed to toxic fumes and that chemicals used in dry cleaning are stored and handled safely.

The agency’s harshest critics say, however, that the plant and shop licenses are unnecessary, that tests are a not-too-subtle means of discouraging and reducing competition for those already in the business, that inspections have been irregular and cursory, and that the board’s responsibilities regarding chemical storage and use overlap duties of the state Air Resources Board and the Department of Industrial Relations.

Other Efforts

Johnson is hoping that his bill, assigned to the Consumer Protection Committee chaired by Assemblyman Robert Frazee (R-Carlsbad), will fare better than measures introduced in 1967, 1968, 1971, 1979 and last year.

Traditionally, licensing agencies have been virtually impossible to dismantle once in place. Still, the Board of Fabric Care, created in 1945, has demonstrated an exceptional knack for survival.

The two earliest efforts to abolish the Fabric Care Board--endorsed by the state’s watchdog Little Hoover Commission--both died on the Assembly floor after passing the Senate. Then in 1971, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan’s bill to dismantle the agency was killed in committees of each house, with then-Sen. George Deukmejian voting with the Democratic majority that the issue needed further study.

A 1979 attempt died because the Brown Administration could not even find a legislative sponsor. And last year, despite general agreement that the board was not doing a good job, only two lawmakers voted for an abolition bill by Sen. Leroy Greene (D-Carmichael) in the Senate Business and Professions Committee.

The fact that no one at the time could remember the last time the board had revoked a license was the major source of irritation for senators at last year’s hearing.

Claim Savings

Although they admit that enforcement has been inadequate in the past, defenders of the board say it has many important functions, including saving consumers thousands of dollars by mediating complaints that seldom get public attention.

“We are not out to take away a (dry cleaner’s) livelihood,” said board President Robert Frederick of Beverly Hills. “We just want him to do what’s right.”

Too, supporters say the agency has greatly stepped up its consumer protection and public health enforcement efforts after the severe scolding during last year’s Senate hearing. Earlier this month, the board revoked the licenses of Orange dry cleaner John Malakouti for operating a plant while holding only a less-expensive shop license. Although the revocation was stayed on condition that Malakouti pay a $450 fine and violate no board regulations for three years, it was the first revocation of any kind in the past 10 years, board supporters note.

Critics see recent changes differently. They see staff changes and increased enforcement activity as actions of a desperate agency trying to convince skeptics it has something to do.

“It just proves what we’ve been saying all along,” said Gene Erbin of the University of San Diego’s Center for Public Interest Law. “They have absolutely nothing legitimate to do.”

Consumer groups, the Deukmejian Administration and an array of co-sponsors for Johnson’s bill that includes liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans, agree that the board performs no useful function that cannot be performed more efficiently elsewhere.

The Department of Consumer Affairs has agreed to support Johnson’s bill if he amends it to return most of the board’s $1.3-million budget reserve to licensees and if other provisions are made for regulating the use, storage and disposal of toxic solvents used in dry cleaning.

Johnson said he already had both amendments in mind and will have them added to the bill before its scheduled hearing Thursday before Frazee’s committee.

The board’s $900,000 annual budget is funded entirely through annual license fees of $30 to $100, depending on type.

For Johnson and consumer groups who complain that licensing agencies often offer more protection to an industry than to consumers, the Board of Fabric Care has become an admittedly symbolic target.

Top Priority

It is “the most ludicrous example of regulatory excess,” said Erbin, who engineered last year’s unsuccessful effort to dismantle the board although he only officially registered as a lobbyist earlier this month.

“If there ever was an instrumentality of state government that should be abolished, this is it,” said Assemblyman Johnson.

Johnson has made the board’s abolition a top legislative priority. He even has sent 3,300 letters to dry cleaners asking for their support for his bill.

For the Orange County conservative, whose basic political philosophy is that government intrudes too often into people’s lives and their pocketbooks, the issue seems tailor-made.

Ironically, however, that philosophy and the years-long efforts of some groups to abolish the agency had little or nothing to do with launching Johnson on his latest crusade against what he views as government senselessness.

Candidly, Johnson admits he had never heard of the agency and was not aware there had been a failed abolition bill last year before his anger over the treatment of a constituent convinced him he wanted to do away with the agency.

The constituent is Joe Kaska, 76, who had operated a dry cleaning store in Anaheim since 1938. Last year, Kaska spent six hours in the Orange County Jail as a result of a dispute with agents of the board over a technical--and, Johnson said, inadvertent--licensing violation.

“It was literally a result of my trying to help a constituent who had a complaint,” said Johnson. “I fully expected it to be resolved satisfactorily.”

Michael Siegel, 37, the self-described “enforcement-minded” lawyer the board hired as its executive officer last year a few months after Kaska was jailed, defends the arrest as “legally appropriate” but concedes that it could, and should, have been avoided.

‘It’s Ludicrous’

That’s an interesting attitude, said Johnson, who admitted that he doesn’t return Siegel’s calls anymore. It was Siegel, not his predecessor, who “got me angry,” Johnson said.

“He wrote me a letter that made Kaska sound like Al Capone. . . . I tell you, it’s ludicrous,” Johnson added.

No matter how it is interpreted, however, the Kaska incident is illustrative of a major problem facing the embattled agency.

Concerning the area of enforcement, some board members say that past boards--not this one--have treated the industry with kid gloves. Some blame former Executive Officer Beverly Bair, fired a year ago, with lax enforcement in the past. Others, including board members, say that Bair, who worked at the board’s pleasure, was being a tougher administrator than the board wanted.

But while board supporters point to past problems as an example of how things have changed, critics seize each new admission as further ammunition in their effort to abolish the board.

Board members say, too, the agency’s uniqueness makes it vulnerable to attack by those who would like to do away with all government regulation. The board’s backers contend, however, that its uniqueness just shows how progressive California has been.

“I think it has been a great help to consumers . . . and I think Michael Siegel has done a lot to turn things around in his short term of office,” said Pamela Robertson-Glor, the most recent appointee and one of two Deukmejian appointees on the seven-person board.

Siegel said that as long as he’s around the board will remain tough in enforcement. Critics say Siegel will probably be fired and replaced with a more laid-back executive once the pressure is off.

Board members scoff at the idea. “Now, why would we do a thing like that?” asked Vice Chairman Elizabeth Eisenberg of Beverly Hills.

Rebutting Critics

Board defenders point to other changes Siegel has made besides stepped-up enforcement. An internal procedural change has reduced the time it takes to get a license from several months to an average of about two weeks, they boast.

Board backers say also that critics’ contention that the licensing procedure is a major impediment to entering the business simply isn’t true.

Records show that 60% of those who took licensing examinations for the first time in January passed, and 70% of those taking exams for a second, third or fourth time earned licenses.

There are no limits on how many times applicants can take the test.

“Frankly, those who can’t pass it, shouldn’t be in the business,” said Hedy Govenar of the California Fabricare Institute, the industry’s lobbyist.

Govenar said she expects the committee vote on Johnson’s bill to be close. Committee Chairman Frazee said his feelings are “kind of mixed.”

“I suppose, on the side of government efficiency, I think it should go,” he said.

The board, meanwhile, is expected to discuss the bill at a meeting scheduled today in Costa Mesa.

Again, the industry is opposing Johnson’s bill.

According to Legi-Tech, a private data gathering service, the Dry Cleaner’s and Allied Trades Political Action Council has, since 1981, contributed more than $19,000 to Republican political committees and California legislators, including $3,375 to members of the Senate committee that killed last year’s bill and $300 to members of the Assembly committee that will first consider the issue this year.

But Govenar said the industry opposition to the bill this year, while widespread, is not unanimous.

“Frankly, there are mixed feelings everywhere this year,” he said. “Last year, the board was under attack for what it didn’t do. This year it is in trouble for doing too much.”