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California Considers Bill to Make Flat Sheets in Hotels a Crime
California has provided yet another example of just how far the tentacles of the Nanny State can reach. California’s legislature will be confronted by a load of bills to consider upon its return from a month-long recess, one of which mandates that hotels eliminate flat sheets and requires all hotels to have fitted sheets on hotel beds.
Section 1 of the legislation requires:
The use of a fitted sheet, instead of a flat sheet, as the bottom sheet on all beds within the lodging establishment. For the purpose of this section, a "fitted sheet" means a bed sheet containing elastic or similar material sewn into each of the four corners that allows the sheet to stay in place over the mattress.
The bill was introduced by State Senator Kevin De Leon. De Leon, whose mother suffered back problems as a hotel maid, said that the bill addresses an issue that is “close to my heart,” as the bill has been prompted by a growing number of housekeeping-related back injuries.
As the statistics regarding workplace injuries of hotel employees did not indicate whether the injuries happened as a result of changing sheets or scrubbing bathrooms, the bill was written to pre-empt injuries during a number of workplace activities.
The bill has already faced some dissent, including from State Senator Sam Blakeslee, who said, “We are not going to make it a crime in California not to use a fitted sheet? Really?”
A number of bloggers have mocked the legislation, including those at the Constitution Club, which wrote, “Assuming the bill passes … who is going to enforce it? Mattress police? Fitted-sheet police? Undercover officers posing as hotel maids?”