DAMMAM: Licenses for women's “beauty parlors” instead of “women's workshops” – currently known as “women's tailoring workshops” – will be issued soon based on a Cabinet ruling and without requiring approval from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (the Hai'a). According to Al-Hayat Arabic daily, Khalifa Al-Sa'ad, Environment Director at the Mayor's Office in the Eastern Province, said that the Cabinet had recently approved licenses for “women's beauty centers rather than women's tailoring shops”. “Each one will have conditions different from the other,” Al-Sa'ad said at a meeting of women's tailoring workshops in the Eastern Province. He said the official decision means that “the Hai'a no longer has any connection to approval for licenses for the workshops” and that “nothing obliges workshop owners to obtain approval from the Hai'a to complete licensing procedures”. “Licenses will be issued by the municipality and the regulations for employing women will be set solely by the Labor Office,” he said. “All procedures and granting of licenses will go through the mayoralty's Women's Department which was opened seven months ago.” Sports clubs in offing Al-Sa'ad added that discussions are taking place with the General Presidency of Youth Welfare to allow “beauty parlors” to add “sports activities” to their list of official functions. “The General Presidency is looking into the question of permitting sports clubs at beauty parlors,” he said. “The issue requires study and regulations from the authority responsible for it.” He said that a number of violations had been found at “women's workshops” in the Eastern Province, with 52 noted in the east of Dammam, 22 in the west, and 53 in the center of the city. Expired licenses, according to Al-Sa'ad, constituted 80 percent of the offenses. He expressed his surprise, however, at the variety of offenses entailing activities such as “sports, cooking, manufacturing products and dangerous medical tools which could cause contagious diseases”. “Most of the seized materials concerned cosmetic products that had passed their expiry dates, while some products had no expiry dates marked on them. There was also equipment not fit for use which could pass on serious illnesses,” he said, adding that slimming, ear-piercing and skin cleansing equipment had been confiscated from some sites. He said that there is “lack of sufficient figures” on diseases such as AIDS and hepatitis, and warned against opening coffee shops at women's workshops.
