By Howard Fischer | Capitol Media Services via Arizona Capitol Times
Come Tuesday you’ll be able to get your hair shampooed and blow dried by anyone you want. You’ll be able to take your nunchucks out of the closet where you’ve been hiding them and actually use them in public.
And when you have a sip of lemonade, you’ll now be imbibing in what Arizona legislators have designated the “official state drink.”
Tuesday is the day when most of the 321 measures approved by the Legislature take effect.
Not all of them.
Some were approved as emergency measures, like the drought contingency plan, which became law on the signature of Gov. Doug Ducey. And some of what was approved this year won’t happen for a while, like a requirement for the testing of medical marijuana which becomes mandatory next year.
Mugshots
But that still leaves a grab-big of issues that Arizona legislators found significant enough to create new laws and restrictions, some with broad effects and some much narrower.
Consider a new law designed to help provide some limited privacy for those who have been arrested.
The statute is aimed at companies that gather booking photos and then put them on a commercial web site where people can pay to find records.
But that’s only half the money-making scheme. Those same companies sometimes agree to take down the pictures and criminal history information for a fee.
The new law makes it illegal to publish criminal justice information on a publicly available website for commercial purposes, including requiring payment of a fee for removal. It also allows anyone whose information is published this way and is “adversely affected” to sue to recover any actual damages, along with penalties of $100 a day for the first 30 days of violation, $200 daily for the next 30 days and $500 a day after that.
But on to broader things.
