Most likely they just did not know the laws completely. With CARB being such a royal pain in the rear, many places will error on the side of caution. Then again, many other places will look the other way for just about anything for the right $, so it goes both ways.
Heck, I still have the CARB sticker that I got with my old Ranger's K&N drop in that I could just slap on anything. Well, if I still owned a car that is...
