delivered the opinion of the Court.
The plaintiff, Liberto, appeals from a decree of the Circuit Court of Baltimore City dismissing his amended bill of complaint for a declaratory dеcree and an injunction, by which he sought to have the so-called Barber Act (the Act) declared unconstitutional and to have its enforcement enjoined. The defendants-appellees are the State’s Attorney of Baltimore City and the Board of Barber Examiners of the State оf Maryland (the Board). Mr. Liberto has been a licensed barber in Baltimore since 1915.
The defendants demurred to the plaintiff’s original bill and their demurrers werе sustained. The plaintiff amended his bill and the defendants again demurred. This time their demurrers were overruled and the case went to trial. The evidence consisted of the testimony of the plaintiff and two stipulations as to what the testimony of the President of the Board and of another member would have been. The Chancellor dismissed the bill because the plaintiff failed to show such infringement of his rights as would establish a sufficient interest to maintain the suit.
The Act is now contained in Code (1957), Art. 43, Secs. 311-325. In its present form, it consists chiefly of the revision of the laws relating to the occupation of barbering made by Ch. 792 of the Acts of 1957. It also includes an amendment made by Ch. 479 of the Acts of 1959, which reduced the subdivisions of the State exempted from the Act from five сounties to one.
The bill attacks the Act on some fifteen grounds. The attacks pressed by the appellant in this court are in brief: (a) *359 that the Act is a regulation of a common calling which transcends the limits of the police power; (b) that it contains an unlawful delegation of powеr to the Board because of the absence of standards for the guidance of that administrative body; (c) that the exemption of one county renders the Act unconstitutional; (d) that the provisions of the Act relating to apprentices are unconstitutional (i) because they arе unreasonable and arbitrary and (ii) because of the absence of standards or definitions; (e) that the provisions for the examination of shops are unconstitutional because they are unreasonable and arbitrary; (f) that the Act is void as a special law which attempts to suрersede what is already provided for by general law.
We shall comment on one of these points before going into the consideration of the appellant’s standing to maintain this suit.
As to contention (a) above, the regulation of the barbering business is within the constitutional power of the Legislature in the exercise of the police power in the interest of public health and safety. See
State v. Tag,
We now return to the appellant’s standing to maintain this suit. Under the “grandfather clause” contained in the amended statute (Code (1957), Art. 43, Sec. 318 (a)), the appellant was entitled without examination to a renewed certificate of qualification upon payment of the sum of two dollars and the annual renewal fee, whiсh, under Sec. 316, is also two dollars. The Act thus does not prevent the appellant from continuing in business as a barber, and the record does not suggеst that the amounts of the fees involved were unreasonable. License fees were provided for under Ch. 226 of the Acts of 1904, the validity of which Act has been sustained in the cases above cited. We do not understand that the appellant challenges the validity of the license fee аs such, but only contends that other provisions of the Act are unconstitutional and that the license fee provisions must fall with them.
How then is the apрellant affected by those provisions of the Act which he assails as unconstitutional? His testimony indicates that his business has been falling off and that he hаs not been able to get competent men to staff his shop, which has a total of five chairs. He complains that the Board has not sufficiеntly examined the men that came in to determine their competence; and though he complains in his bill of the length of the period of apprenticeship as being more than is needed to train barbers, he says that new men will not stay with him even long enough for him to train them. We do not find in his testimony any claim that the Act has prevented him from getting assistants, whether apprentices or master barbers, or that the Board has actually interferеd with the conduct of his business. It is stipulated that after the dismissal of his bill in this case in the trial court the appellant *361 has been convicted in a police court of failing to pay his renewal fee and that he has appealed to the Criminal Court of Baltimore where his appeal is stаyed pending the determination of this case. We assume his contentions as to the license fee are similar to those made here, but that case is not before us.
At the conclusion of the appellant’s testimony at the hearing in the Circuit Court counsel for the Board put this question: “* * * I just want tо know how this Act has hurt you in the operation of your business insofar as you are charging what you want, your customers come and go as they want, has it interfered with the conduct of your business in that regard?” The appellant replied: “It has not interfered with the conduct of my business. If I had another man I cоuld do better, if I had a good man [;] but I can’t keep him because men coming out of school, they don’t know what they are doing.”
We cannot find from this stаtement, which epitomizes the appellant’s testimony, any infringement of any of his constitutional rights. The Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act (Code (1957), Art. 31A, Secs. 1, 2 and 6) provides for the determination,
inter alia,
of constitutional rights where a genuine controversy exists and where the rights of a party are directly affected by a statute.
Davis v. State,
We agree with the learned Chancellor thаt the appellant has not shown that his rights are so affected by the provisions of *362 the Act which he attacks as to give him standing to maintain this suit.
Decree affirmed, with costs.
Notes
. The Attorney General’s brief for the appellees in this case lists some 37 States and the District of Columbia as having apprenticeship and examination statutes (including provisions for examination fees and annual renewal fees) comparable to the Maryland Barber Act.