Memphis Hairstylists Propose Reopening Salons Under New Guidelines To Save Their Businesses

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp caused controversy when he announced that the state would allow certain businesses including hairdressers and massage parlors to reopen on Friday, April 24. The move comes with many other governors throughout the South pushing ahead to begin easing restrictions to restart the economy. In Memphis, Tennessee, a group of hairstylists in the area are coming together to propose easing restrictions to allow their customers to return under the COVID-19 pandemic.

Charlette Logan owns the W Salon in the Midtown neighborhood. She is one of the many business owners that have faced serious economic repercussions under the non-essential business closure due to the viral outbreak. Logan now wants the city government to let her open her doors back up and consider putting money aside for businesses like hers, creating a petition for certain businesses to reopen. She is proposing that salons open if they can allow one client in at a time.

Hairstylists, life herself, found themselves shut out of relief programs from small business loans and she doesn’t qualify for unemployment. Logan is like many salon owners who told FOX13 Memphis they are trying to qualify for some type of relief in order to keep the doors open.

“I’ve gotten a lot of my clients and people, in general, send me things about loans and grants and things like that and most of them I don’t qualify for,” she said. “I just hope that something happens to where salons, people in the beauty industry because we are really not considered much during this entire pandemic we haven’t been considered much at all.”

A representative from the Shelby County Health Department responded to Logan’s petition stating that no decision will be made at this time as things continue to develop with the viral pandemic and that “municipalities, including the Shelby County Mayor’s Office, are looking at ways personal service businesses can operate while protecting the health of both the clients and the practitioners. No decisions have been made at this time, but there will be some guidance to come.”