(No caption)
The popularity of beards comes and goes. Currently, they're are in. Tigers ace pitcher Justin Verlander wears one, as does Lions quarterback Matt Stafford.
Now, the Detroit Police Department is finally catching up and getting rid of its ban on beards.
Gina Damron of the Detroit Free Press reports:
Police Chief James Craig said he didn't want to "keep something in place that really had ... no bearing on how good they would do their job."
The department previously banned beards and goatees, but allowed neatly-trimmed mustaches. Officers who had a medical condition aggravated by shaving, though, could seek a shaving deferment, allowing them to grow beards and save their skin from razor bumps. But they weren't allowed to sculpt their beards along the hairline because "such removal would defeat the purpose of deferred shaving," according to a facial hair policy dated in 2009.
Under the new policy – which, according to a department teletype/, took effect in July – officers can sport trimmed beards and goatees.
