As amazing as it seems when you consider that most Institutional Locksmiths have total control over the keys to the equivalent of a small city (a mid-size institution typically has about 55,000 locks and affects about 10,000 people and several million dollars in assets), most of the licensing laws in the US so far do NOT address these individuals or they specifically exempt them. The same is true of plumbers and electricians working directly for the institution!

Many institutions are requiring certification and background checks on their own in the absence of state regulation, but this does not address many of the questions and risks.

At the time of this writing, only the New Jersey law is including Institutional Locksmiths, and it provides a loophole permitting a company license under which, as it was explained to me, Institutional Locksmiths may work without an individual license during training, with no limitation on the training period or method of training.

If a commercial locksmith operates a business and services the same locks for the institution, they must have a locksmith shop license and an individual locksmith license to do so. What strange laws get written from time to time always amazes me.

The above is, of course, only my personal opinion, and as Dennis Miller states in each section of his RANT comedy routine, "Of course, that is only MY opinion, and I could be wrong."

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