Massage parlors, barber shops

Hair cuts. Massages. Tattoos. Pedicures. Manicures. These were just some of the luxuries lost as businesses faced mandatory shutdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yet as states began to reopen last month, most areas saw the resurgence of these businesses as longtime customers clamored to receive their self-care services. Take Mitch Brewer, who owns Bad Habits Barbershop in Norwalk, Ohio. Upon opening the doors to his business again, he said recently that the public’s response was something he categorized as “overwhelming.”

“Our first days back were a Friday and 건마 Saturday and it was absolute mayhem,” Brewer said. “Once we started back up, we’ve been getting an overwhelming number of people.”

Is Brewer’s experience similar to other likeminded businesses across America? Ogden Newspapers spoke with business owners in 14 states to gauge how the reopening process has been as they work around masks, sanitize massage tables and keep their shops as clean — and as socially distanced — as possible. The following is what we found.

Norwalk is the seat for Huron County, one of the seven counties Gov. Mike DeWine announced Tuesday were hardest hit by COVID-19.

Bad Habits Owner Mitch Brewer said the new order mandating masks to be worn in public has hurt his business, as no beards can be cut if masks can’t come off.

While Brewer himself won’t have to constantly wear a mask due to his asthma, masks are now to be worn inside public spaces until the county’s outbreaks lessen.

Brewer opened Bad Habits in September and because he’s self-employed, he was denied unemployment.

“We can’t cut beards, (can’t do) the hot lather, we can’t do anything like that,” Brewer said. “I’ve already had multiple clients cancel with me because of that reason.”

He said his shop has received a lot of backlash from community members who disagree with the mandate.

“Different members of the community are acting like this is our rule, but in reality, it’s not — we are just being forced to abide by it,” he said. “My biggest worry is if I allow my barbers to be comfortable and cut how they want without a mask, I have to worry about the state board coming and shutting me down.”

Brewer went on to explain that his barber chairs are sanitized after every client. Also included in his shop’s precautions are barbers wearing gloves and the shop having a rotation to clean doorknobs and light switches. No one is allowed to wait inside the shop, and only one customer is allowed in at a time.

“You have to wait in your vehicle or out on the porch and you have to wait for us to call or text you and say it’s your turn to come in,” he said. “We’re doing the best we can to keep our people safe.”

Brewer said he worries that the mask mandate will be problematic as the summer goes on.

“I don’t think it should be mandated for every soul to have to wear it, not by any means, especially in this heat,” he said. “There’s numerous things said by doctors recently that you should not wear a mask in the humidity. People are going to be getting heatstroke.”

In Salem, Beauty on Broadway being closed was “a very lonely time,” owner Shelby Shambabh said.

“To go away from our clients and our team, that was a rough deal for all of us,” she said.

One of the struggles she faced with reopening her salon was having to do so on such short notice.

“Our salon is designed a certain way, and now we had to rearrange all that, things had to be reconstructed and there was no help for that,” she said. “They only gave us six days to get ready. As a team, we went out and shopped. It was tough. You hadn’t worked for two months and have to spend all this money on rearranging, cleaning supplies, rerouting electrical. It was not fun.”

While Shambabh owns Beauty on Broadway, the other cosmetologists rent their space in her shop.

“As soon as we shut down, I stopped their rent,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep at night knowing they were struggling to pay me. Being the owner and having so many faces looking at me, asking what we were going to do, it was hard.”

She said the salon’s cleaning routine has always been very regimented before the COVID-19 outbreak, but wearing masks is new and hairdressers can only see one client at a time.