Local barber, stylist talk frustration ahead of scheduled re-opening date

At this time of year Chelsey Graf-Brown’s appointment book would have been full with clients needing their hair done for proms and graduations.

Graf-Brown has been a hair stylist for five years and has built a list of clients who keep her busy at the Salon 505 where she rents a booth.

“I do a lot of formal styling, I do a lot of weddings, I do a lot of formal events, so prom season is super busy for me, I’m usually completely booked on all of those Saturdays with just updo clients,” she said.

This January, 2014 A-J Media file photo shows Lubbock barber Maurice Stanley ahead of his run for City Council that spring.

However, as COVID-19 concerns have shut down non-essential businesses that have included cosmetology salons for about a month, Graf-Brown has spent her time producing hair tutorial videos on her Instagram profile to keep in touch with her clients.

She also helps her 9-year-old daughter with school and takes care of her two younger children, who she pulled out of daycare.

“Everybody’s home - it’s crazy,” she said.

Graf-Brown said she never expected to be out of work for so long.

“I thought by now would have been the longest that I would have been out,” she said.

Now, there’s an end in sight.

Last week when Gov. Greg Abbott announced the first phase of his plan to reopen certain businesses in Texas, retail stores, restaurants, movie theaters, and malls were permitted to reopen May 1, but must limit their capacity to 25% of their listed occupancy.

Graf-Brown said she thought the announcement would be a light at the end of the tunnel. However, the plan excluded such as bowling alleys, video arcades, bars, cosmetology salons and barbershops from the first wave of businesses to be opened at a limited capacity - at least it did for then.

“It’s frustrating that we’re all being lumped together,” she said.

She was operating under the assumption that would continue until May 18, provided the infection rate subsides.

On Monday, Abbott circled back on the decision, allowing barber shops and hair salons to open this Friday, May 8.

Graf-Brown and other cosmetology and hair and professionals had said they were frustrated their industry was initially excluded from the first wave of businesses to open.

“I do think that we should have been the ones to open before movie theaters and the mall,” she said.

Maurice Stanley, owner of Jerry’s Barber Shop, also expressed his frustration as he waited to re-open his shop.

“We have gotten screwed over this latest deal from the governor,” he said last week. “We were sacrificed so that the governor and the politicians could come out of this thing OK. We were the sacrificial lambs here.”

Stanley, who has had his barber’s license since 1968, said he was initially supportive of the measures to close businesses such as his, believing he would be back to work after two weeks.

“But that ain’t what happened,” he said. “That ain’t what happened.”

He said he took issue with what he believed to be an unfair determination of which businesses were deemed essential to operate.

“I don’t see that it was essential that people could go shop in Walmart, and they couldn’t go to another store,” he said. “I have a very, very, very, bad taste in my mouth for the word of ‘essential business.’ Because here’s the way that it works. If your livelihood depends on your business, your business is damn sure essential.”

Graf-Brown said she wished the governor allowed her business to open last Friday as her industry already has strict sanitation and sterilization requirements.

Now, her shop will be able to open this Friday.

“Before we were worried about (COVID-19), you know, us stylists, we worried about flu, strep, H1N1, HIV,” she said. “We had to learn all of that in school and we’re already prepared for all of these infectious diseases that are out there.”

She said unlike retail workers, to be able to work, stylists take 1,500 hours of schooling that is mostly concentrated on sanitation and disinfection procedures. They also have to renew their licenses every two years.

“It’s four hours worth of sanitation stuff that we have to read and then take a quiz over every two years,” she said.

Graf-Brown said she would be able to accommodate the guidelines the governor’s plan required.

“We’ve already done what we were supposed to do,” she said. “We’re so ready to get back to work and we care about the safety of our clients, but we also care about the safety and health for our safety and our family’s safety. So, again, whatever guidelines they tell us to do, even if they’re absolutely crazy I know that we will all follow them.”

In February as the threat of the new coronavirus loomed over the country, Graf-Brown, said her salon was already putting measures in place to slow the risk of infection.

“We stopped double booking so that we only had one stylist in our chair at one time,” she said.

She said she thoroughly disinfected her work area between clients.

“I would schedule myself 15 to 20 minutes between each client, so that I would have time to do that,” she said.

When her business does reopen, her precautions will include wearing gloves and masks.

“I think most people are going to require that their client also wear a mask,” she said.

Stanley said his shop has taken similar measures to curtail the risk of infection.

“Our sterilization and sanitation is probably as good as anybody in town, except in a doctor’s office,” he said. “I would give the doctor’s office probably a leg up on us on that.”

Meanwhile, Stanley and Graf-Brown said they have been unable to advantage of the safety net offered to people unable to work as COVID-19 concerns closed their businesses.

“This is my livelihood, you know?” Stanley said. “I haven’t had a paycheck and by the time all this is over it’ll be over eight weeks. You know, and all this stuff that they talk about all these programs that you can get, no. I haven’t had a penny yet.”

Brown-Graf said she’s fortunate her husband has been able to work during the pandemic. But she said some of her colleagues aren’t as lucky.

“I work with a lot of girls who do have kids and they’re single moms,” she said.

So she understands the desperation that leads stylists to continue working from home or make house, a violation of their state license that could get them fined or charged with a felony.

“I can still see that temptation there, not having another income and needing to feed my children or provide for my kids, like, yeah, in a heartbeat I would definitely do that,” she said. “So it’s smarter for us to be in our salon environment where we can be sanitary, we can follow all the guidelines.”