My Tampa Experience...

So... I am on the road to Tampa for the Annual Open Indoor Tanning Association meeting, and was completely excited as this was a first for me. After all of these years, I had never attended one of these meetings?! I need to get out more! The Monday evening I got there, I attended a lovely dinner at the home of one of our industry's members and spent time speaking with owners of distributing companies, fellow salon owners, and indoor tanning product manufacturers. Actually, it was more like the Shelly Griffin - let me ask a 1000 questions - interrogation (sorry to each of you I cornered!) Oh, and did I fail to mention that I was only one of four females amongst all of these fine gentleman? I never realized that in an industry predominately owned by females, and in an industry that serves a greater quantity of females to males, there would be so many men in key postitions. But as I type this and really think about what I just wrote, "DUH" comes to mind!

Tuesday morning gets here and I am ready for a great and informative meeting, whereby I can bring a wealth of information back to Tallahassee on the status of our industry. Well, I have to tell you, that I became horrified with all of the pending legislation in our country in reference to minors and indoor tanning. This legislative year was especially active country-wide, as I came to understand, and included was the state of Florida. Just FYI, a Senator out of South Florida was trying to ban indoor tanning for minors 16 years of age and under. I was grateful to be a part of that legislative process, and, having a great lobbyist was certainly to our benefit. The happy ending for the State of Florida was that the bill died in committee, but I don't believe for a moment that this ugly bill will be gone forever. The biggest issue with all of the proposed legislation is that the politicians only see their prize: to ban indoor tanning. They could care less and have no idea of what legislation is currently in place, or what responsible salon owners do to ahere to the rules of this State. They don't care that responsible salon owners educate on the effects of UV exposure and your skin , whether indoors or out, as a daily practice. Legislation is always a tough battle to fight, but, like a salmon swimming upstream, we will continue to fight and eventually reach our goal. My drive home gave me much to think about and I hope that this blog will provide me an open forum to speak candidly, and at times with humor, to those of you that take time out of your day to read it.

By this time next week, I will be in Downtown Nashville at our annual trade show. There will be much discussion about what I have shared, but there will be even more discussion about Vitamin D and the positive effects of UV exposure in moderation. The unfortunate part is that as a salon owner, I am not permitted to speak about the positive effects of UV exposure in moderation...I am only required to warn you of possible consequences when it is abused.

I certainly look forward to sharing when I return. Until then...