By Dominick Tao, Times Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
LARGO — City employees at Southwest Recreation Center were forced to stop giving free haircuts to underprivileged children this month after an anonymous resident claiming to be a city employee said the city was breaking the law by practicing barbering without a license.
Largo's mayor and the parks department staff saw it this way: Yes, the free haircuts broke the law, but if the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office can do the same thing at its homeless shelter, what's the big deal?
The city staff member giving the haircuts, said parks and recreation director Joan Byrne, was not a licensed barber and thus was in violation of a state statute requiring a license to cut hair.
But it's a shame the haircuts have to stop, Byrne said in an e-mail.
"Many of these kids could not afford a ...