No. HB 1341
Filed under Occupational.
Department of Business and Professional Regulation; Expands jurisdiction of law enforcement officers for Division of Alcoholic Beverages & Tobacco; provides DBPR enforcement authority over employment eligibility verification; revises prohibitions relating to minors for talent agencies; requires Barbers' Board & Board of Cosmetology, respectively, to establish certain minimum standards & penalties for failing to adhere to such standards; requires department to report penalties imposed to DOE; authorizes department to take certain actions against certain establishments for violating laws relating to hemp extract; authorizes department to validate identity & work authorization of applicant before issuing license or renewing license; specifies personal identification information department may request from applicant; authorizes department to submit such personal identification information to & enter into memoranda of understanding with appropriate federal agencies; requires department to suspend license of person not authorized to work in United States; requires department to reinstate license without charge; provides immunity; authorizes division to suspend or revoke permit of dealer if division finds sufficient evidence of violation of laws of this state or any other state or territory of United States; prohibits licensed or permitted dealers from possessing, selling, intending to sell, delivering, or giving nitrous oxide on or from dealer's licensed premises; provides criminal penalties.
Plain English Summary
AI-GENERATEDThe Department of Business and Professional Regulation may check license applicants' and licensees' identity and work-authorization status using government records, and must immediately suspend the license of anyone found not authorized to work in the United States.
The department can request extensive personal records -- Social Security numbers, passports, immigration documents -- share them with federal agencies, and cannot be sued over any delay, denial, or suspension this process causes.
Separately, the alcohol and tobacco enforcement division's officers gain primary enforcement authority over dozens of additional chapters, from professional licensing to condominiums, cooperatives, timeshares, and mobile home parks.
The bill also creates a new felony for selling nitrous oxide at tobacco and nicotine retailers, adds a felony penalty for talent agencies that send minors to prohibited places, and lets permit discipline follow any violation of any state's law.
AIBefore issuing or renewing a license covered by this section, the department may check an applicant's identity and work-authorization status. If a licensee is found not authorized to work in the United States, the department must immediately suspend that license, reinstating it at no charge once federal agencies verify authorization.
AIDivision of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco law enforcement officers, previously focused on alcohol, tobacco, and hemp laws, gain primary responsibility for enforcing dozens of added chapters -- including chapter 455 (DBPR's general professional-licensing law), eight parts of chapter 468, several individual practice acts, and the condominium, cooperative, timeshare, and mobile home park statutes.
AISending any person to a house of prostitution or similar place, or a minor for nude modeling without parental consent, becomes a first-degree misdemeanor. A new, minor-specific paragraph makes the same conduct toward a minor a third-degree felony, effective October 1, 2026.
AIThe division may suspend or revoke a retail tobacco or nicotine dealer's permit for a violation of the laws of this state or any other state or territory of the United States -- not only for a violation tied specifically to the tobacco and nicotine chapter itself.
AIA new crime, cited in the bill as 'Meg's Law,' makes it a third-degree felony for a licensed tobacco or nicotine dealer, or its agent or employee, to possess, sell, deliver, or give nitrous oxide from the dealer's premises, effective October 1, 2026. Grocery stores and supermarkets are exempt; convenience stores are not.
AIThe Department of Business and Professional Regulation is added to the list of authorities an employer may be directed to use to verify a new hire's work eligibility, and if DBPR believes an employer used an unauthorized worker or skipped verification, it must notify the Department of Commerce and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement within 30 days.
AIThe Barbers' Board, the Board of Cosmetology, and specialty-registration programs (ss. 476.114, 477.019, and 477.0201) must each set minimum standards, by rule, for schools to electronically report students' course-completion records, with penalties -- including losing the ability to report -- for schools that fail to meet them. The department must report all such penalties to the Department of Education.
AIA public lodging or food service establishment that violates the state's hemp extract law can now be fined or otherwise disciplined by the department's hotel and restaurant regulators, the same as for operating without a license or with a suspended license.