NY State bans all non-approved MA competetitions!

[Don Roley]

Found this on another forum I frequent.
New york bans all non-approved competition events

The short story is that if your name is not on the "approved" list of orginizations, you can not have open competition as part of your event. As you can imagine, not only can this cause problems with EMA, but WMA guys may be looking at having their event busted up by the cops.
And the rumor is that the guys who approve new groups for the list are not really interested in doing so. Part of it may be just standard goverment slowness to new things. Or it may have something to do with a lot of lobbying by orginizations that can now have a monopoly on running profitable events.

[TimSheetz]

Hi Don,

Good thing we don't hold tournaments or competitions.

Tim

[Jamie Fellrath]

Don (and all),

I researched this matter as far as I could. Unfortunately, I can't find any sort of official New York State Athletic Commission website that might have this law explained. But I did find a supposed email on a kickboxing website from a NYSAC official where this was explained. Apparently New York has been shutting down Kickboxing events in various parts of the state, presumably (at least from my reading) to get rid of "Fight Club" type groups.

Date: Tue, 01 Oct 2002 13:02:11 -0400
From: "Hugo Spindola" HSpindol@dos.state.ny.us

The New York State Athletic Commission is in receipt of your email dated September 19, 2002, regarding kickboxing. In order to answer your question one must look at the section of the law in New York State which covers "combative sports." The relevant section - Section 8905-a of the Unconsolidated Laws - defines combative sports as "any professional match or exhibition other than boxing, sparring, wrestling or martial arts...the term 'martial arts' shall include any professional match or exhibition sanctioned by any of the following organizations: U.S. Judo Association, U.S. Judo, Inc., U.S. Judo Federation, U.S. Tae Kwon Do Union, North American Sport Karate Association, U.S.A. Karate Foundation, U.S. Karate, Inc., World Karate Association, Professional Karate Association, Karate International, International Kenpo Association, or World Wide Kenpo Association."

Although I do not have any personal knowledge as to the specific organizers who have had their shows "closed down", I will note that their events were probably not sanctioned by any of the above listed governing bodies. As such, they would then fall into the "combative sports" definition.

I hope this response fulfills your previous request.

Very truly yours,
Hugo B. Spindola
General Counsel
New York State Athletic Comission
123 William Street - 20th Floor
New York, New York 10038
(212) 417-5700

If this email is genuine, then the key word here seems to be professional. Since ARMA is a not-for-profit organization, I don't think we can be called professional. I'm not a lawyer, but it seems we should be okay.

[Shane Smith]

I hate it when my fellow man seeks to coerce me into doing what HE thinks is right for me by force of law. <img src="/forum/images/icons/mad.gif" alt="" />

[Don Roley]

I have to agree with Shane. Good-niks irritate me.

But what about sport fencing and SCA? I did not see them on this list of the "approved" groups. Here is a link to the text of the law itself.