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LEGAL PAD 86 DAYSPA | JULY 2014 deals with certain matters of state- wide importance that confl ict with local legislation—ordinances if you will—are pre-empted by state law, and the state regulations trump. The doctrine of pre-emption has done a great deal of good for this country. For instance, if a state pass- es a law saying that it's permissible to discriminate against someone on the basis of race, then a federal law making discrimination illegal will pre-empt that state law, effectively invalidating it. On the other hand, the doctrine of pre-emption sometimes has "in- teresting" results. One might think, for instance, that a state regulation or a local ordinance or even a cor- porate policy prohibiting a woman of childbearing age from working in an area of a battery factory where she would be exposed to high lev- els of lead that would damage a fetus would be reasonable and permissible. However, just such a case, International Union v. Johnson Controls, Inc., the Supreme Court of the United States, held that this fetal protection policy violated Title VII's federal prohibition against sex discrimination! The court did not ex- plicitly fi nd pre-emption but stated that "[w]hen it is impossible for an employer to comply with both state and federal requirements, federal law pre-empts that of the States." In the case of the state legisla- tion that created the CAMTC, it pre-empted, or took away, the local governments' power to control mas- sage therapy establishments with their ordinances. And this is where things went awry. Because there was no more local control, the number of massage storefronts in the California coastal community of Huntington Beach—for one—grew by almost 500%. It would be safe to assume that a number of these establish- ments were fronts for prostitution. BOOTS ON THE GROUND And so, here is where we have to champion the cause for local con- trol. When done fairly and for good purposes, there is really nothing like it in the world. When a city council- person in a small community votes for an ordinance that will affect people he has to walk past every day on the street, you can be assured that that councilperson will seriously consider When done fairly and for good purposes, there is really nothing else like local control. dayspamagazine.com/freeinfo • Use FreeInfo #49 L e g a l P a d . i n d d 8 6 Legal Pad.indd 86 6 / 3 / 1 4 1 1 : 4 8 A M 6/3/14 11:48 AM