“If I don’t work, me and my daughter won’t have a home.” I need to fight for rent,” said the owner, a single mom from San Jose who declined to give her name and asked that the shop not be identified. How do you tell? You just try to do the best you can.”Ī nail salon in Saratoga continued to serve customers during the most recent stay-at-home order but kept the blinds drawn, the door locked and a “Closed” sign on the window to maintain a low profile. “I keep going back and forth: Should I, or should I not?” she said.
RULES OF SURVIVAL TWITTER PROFESSIONAL
When the shop closed last summer, she moved into a downtown Los Angeles loft and set up a station at home, borrowing a professional salon chair, buying air filters and only accepting current clients or referrals, masks required.īookings fell by about 75% - “I’m getting by with credit cards and whatever I saved up” - and Ho grappled with whether she should even be working at all.
Many business owners said they could not afford to be sidelined.Ī year ago, Ho tended to dozens of clients a week at a beauty salon in Pasadena. “Even when the government was giving us stimulus and unemployment, it wasn’t enough.” “I have a son to feed and to support, and rent to pay, and it was just getting too hard to not work at all,” said hairstylist Joanna Ho, 40. It’s simply to make ends meet, and in the absence of sufficient financial assistance and clear guidance, they have been relying on themselves - and discreet customers they can trust - to do it. In Los Angeles and other counties with forced closures, you could still get your nails done and your hair trimmed, practice Pilates inside a studio and eat a restaurant meal with a group of friends - no takeout containers involved.īy continuing to serve customers, the businesses violated the spirit - and in some cases the letter - of public health orders and complicated efforts to stem the spread of the coronavirus, health officials said.īut those who have been operating for months under the radar say their decision isn’t a repudiation of face masks, social distancing or government overreach, or about enabling parties during a pandemic. Gavin Newsom, some business owners continued to carry on covertly.
But even before an easing of restrictions announced this week by Gov. The COVID-19 shutdown orders imposed in March and again during the holidays crippled large swaths of the California economy.
The businesses appeared closed, but there were telltale signs of life: light seeping out from behind boarded-up windows, customers coming and going through employee entrances, Instagram posts alluding to in-home appointments.
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