Goodbye mullet: California allows hair salons to reopen

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday cleared barbershops and hair salons to reopen, the latest in a series of recent moves that have relaxed restrictions he put in place when ordering the nation’s first statewide stay-at-home order to curb the coronavirus outbreak.

As with other re-openings, the state issued voluminous guidelines for barbershops and salons to follow,. Among them: customers and workers must wear face coverings during hair-cutting and other close-contact services and customers should be screened and their appointments canceled if they show signs of illness.

The announcement came a day after Newsom’s administration released highly anticipated guidance for allowing religious services to resume.

Newsom instituted the stay-at-home order on March 19, shuttering hundreds of thousands of businesses and creating record unemployment. Under increasing pressure to reopen the economy beyond so-called essential businesses, Newsom unveiled standards earlier this month that allowed counties to open more quickly if they met state requirements on testing and tracing, hospitalization rates and overall cases of the virus.

Those requirements were too strict for many counties, especially the largest, and last week Newsom relaxed them, paving the way for a flood of restaurant and retail reopenings. All together, 47 of California’s 58 counties received state approval to reopen more broadly.

Now Newsom is pushing farther ahead, following a Memorial Day weekend in which more Californians were out and about, enjoying restaurant dining for the first time in months and greater access to beaches, parks and trails.

“We’re making progress, we’re moving forward, we’re not looking back — but we are walking into the unknown,” Newsom acknowledged during a news conference.

Newsom said he felt confident moving forward because the state now is testing 60,000 people a day, procured massive amounts of protective equipment for workers and plans to deploy 5% of the state’s workforce as contact tracers who can track the spread of the virus to head off outbreaks. He said the state anticipates an increase in the number of cases because of greater testing.

“That’s inevitable, but that’s not in and of itself an alarm bell,” he said. “We believe with the modifications that we have time to test the theory of our case and to make adjustments if indeed we need to dial it back.”

Across the state, hospitalizations for the virus were down nearly 7% over the past two weeks and the number of patients in intensive care was stable, Newsom said. About 100,000 have tested positive for the virus in California and more than 3,800 have died.

As with all his orders, Newsom allowed counties to go more slowly than the state. That’s the case in Los Angeles County and the San Francisco Bay Area counties, where leaders have said they want to be more cautious to ensure they have a handle on the virus.

The Bay Area has suffered remarkably few deaths but that’s not the situation in Los Angeles County, which has a quarter of the state’s population of about 40 million but more than half the virus deaths.

Los Angeles has dramatically ramped up its testing and Tuesday opened a new facility at Dodger Stadium that can serve 6,000 people a day. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said it’s the largest testing facility in California and possibly the country.

For weeks, hair salons pushed for Newsom to let them reopen and now that they can in the 47 counties approved by the state they will need to operate much differently.

Beyond masks, the state suggests workers use goggles or face shields. Stylists should serve only one customer at a time, and salons and barbershops must get rid of shared items like magazines and offerings such as water and coffee. Reception areas must have hand sanitizer and enough space for social distancing. Workstations and stools are to be disinfected between each customer.

Scott Fontana, owner of Christophe Salon in Newport Beach, said he’s hoping to reopen Monday. He still needs train staff on the new protocols and reach out to clients to schedule them. He said he has a waiting list of about 250 people.

“As soon as Newsom made that announcement today, the phones have not stopped ringing,” he said.

Fontana said he’s slashed expenses but is still concerned about the budget. He said he’ll only be able to use every other chair and isn’t allowed to double-book appointments.

“We’ve cut a lot of monthly expenses. But we have a very high overhead,” he said.

The new rules for hair salons don’t extend to all beauty services. Nail salons still aren’t cleared to open, and hair salons shouldn’t perform services such as eyebrow waxing or facials that require a worker to touch a customers face.

Fred Jones, legal counsel for Professional Beauty Federation of California, said it made no sense to exclude nail salons. He said the state’s license for operating a hair, skin or nail salon establishment come in one packaged license.

“There’s vagueness in the very act of saying hair salons and barbershops can reopen without also including skin and nail. So what happens if you own a shop that does all three areas?” Jones said.