Name: St. Paul barbershop reopens despite coronavirus lockdown
Brand: twincities.com
SKU: twincities-com-15
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

St. Paul barbershop reopens despite coronavirus lockdown

preview

By | | Pioneer PressWhen many stores ran low on toilet paper earlier this year, Milan Dennie scrambled to find 2,000 rolls he could give away to passersby outside his University Avenue barbershop in St. Paul. He gave away 1,000 hand soaps. These days, he says, he has nothing left to give.Dennie kept his head up, counting on the governor to lift stay-at-home orders and reopen his barbershop business on May 4. He operates his barbershop as well as a .When Gov. Tim Walz last week ordered barbers, hair salons and other walk-in service counters to remain closed for all but curbside retail sales, Dennie knew what he had to do. On Monday morning, he made good on a promise to his customers and opened up shop anyway, cutting hair with a thick mask on his face and another on each customer.“These are shampoo capes,” said Dennie, demonstrating how he adorns customers with no-stick, non-fabric vinyl aprons and sterilizes his combs in Barbicide, which has been approved by the Environmental Protection Agency as a disinfectant against coronavirus.Those are among the steps he included in a social distancing proposal he shared with the Minnesota Board of Barber Examiners and the Minnesota Board of Cosmetologist Examiners, the two state licensing authorities for barbers and stylists. He has yet to hear back from either organization.“I’m not trying to be disrespectful in any way to his rules or laws,” Dennie said of the governor’s executive orders, which took effect in late March, “but it’s unfair.”Dennie said other barbers have effectively gone underground to do house calls, entering homes to perform their services, which strikes him as less safe than his strategy.“I’m a business owner who is required by the state to go to school and learn (safety protocols),” Dennie said, “but someone who owns a liquor store, who is not trained, can have a group of people in there all day … and be called an essential business? It’s not fair. … I can’t see myself following an unjust law, which is not a law to me. And we starving. No, it’s not fair.”The same sentiment is being echoed by salons, barbershops and small retailers across the nation as they struggle with a patchwork quilt of reopening rules that vary from state to state, and in some cases from county to county.President Donald Trump proclaimed a national emergency on March 13 but has since criticized some states’ stay-at-home orders as “too tough,” while allowing governors to mostly go it alone in determining how to control the spread of the virus.In Wisconsin, Gov. Tom Evers recently extended stay-at-home orders there to May 26, allowing restaurant drive-throughs and delivery to proceed but keeping barbershops and hair salons closed, as well as nail salons, day spas, tattoo and tanning facilities.In Minnesota, Walz last Thursday extended many business closures to May 18, but partially lifted restrictions for retailers that can perform curbside pick-ups and deliveries. Thousands of workers in manufacturing and office settings that do not require face-to-face customer interaction were allowed to return to work a week ago.While Republican leaders such as House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt, R-Crown, have called on Walz to reopen the economy faster, officials with the Minnesota Retailers Association have noted that .Governor’s orders aren’t fair, says St. Paul barbershop owner and consummate community volunteer Milan Dennie, who presented state licensing boards with a social distancing and has yet to hear back. Liquor stores but not barbers? So he’s open and here’s how, why: “We starving.”— Frederick Melo, Reporter (@FrederickMelo)A reporter’s call to the Minnesota Board of Barber Examiners was not immediately returned on Monday, and an email to the cosmetology board was not immediately returned.In an email, Damon Dorsey, president of the American Barber Association, said while shops are suffering, it’s paramount to reopen with a safety plan in place, and only once state and local authorities recommend it.“It is a fact … that some barbers have gotten the virus and some have died,” Dorsey said. “We, of course, encourage all barbershops and barbers to follow local guidance on when is the safest time to re-open and begin serving customers. We strongly support a ‘safety first’ approach to reopening.”Nationally, many governors have been sobered by statistical models predicting exponential growth in virus infections, with spikes forecast in coming weeks and a possible resurgence in the fall.Dennie, who has plastered his walls with reminders to keep “6 Feet” between each patron, said he’s not insensitive to those concerns. But there’s also a human cost, he said, to blight and poverty, especially in low-income neighborhoods.“The owner should be able to come in and do at least one client (at a time),” he said. “That would pay our bills. At least the owner should be able to keep the business itself open, or there’s going to be a lot of abandoned buildings.”There’s no question his decision to reopen violates the governor’s recent extension of his stay-at-home order.“Salons and barbershops may not provide any services,” the order states.But it’s unclear what consequences Dennie might actually face, if any.Under the order, a worker who willfully violates it can be charged with a misdemeanor and if convicted, fined up to $1,000 and up to 90 days in jail, and an employer who encourages their employees to violate it can be charged with a gross misdemeanor and, if convicted, fined up to $3,000 and sentenced to up to a year in prison.But Walz has emphasized that he doesn’t want to exercise those powers, and as yet, the strictest punishments appear to be citations from local police.Walz has always been aware that at some point, willful violations would occur, and on Monday, he mused about the social compact that he has said is necessary beyond strict law enforcement.“I think most of us know, regardless if it’s speeding laws or moving up to other things, social compliance is the idea that (our) actions don’t only impact ourselves, they impact others,” he said at a Monday afternoon news conference, not speaking specifically about Dennie’s barbershop but compliance in general.Dennie said he’s running out of money and has reached his breaking point. Small business emergency loans through the federal Paycheck Protection Program have been notoriously hard to come by during the pandemic. A notice on the state Department of Employment and Economic Development’s website indicates “Current loan requests have exceeded funding availability.”“Businesses should know how to proceed with their business,” Dennie said. “Especially barbers. We went to school for this.Dave Orrick contributed to this report.“We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. We reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.Sign up for Newsletters and AlertsFollow UsMost PopularClose

By | | Pioneer PressWhen many stores ran low on toilet paper earlier this year, Milan Dennie scrambled to find 2,000 rolls he could give away to passersby outside his University Avenue barbershop in St. Paul. He gave away 1,000 hand soaps. These days, he says, he has nothing left to give.Dennie kept his head up, counting on the governor to lift stay-at-home orders and reopen his barbershop business on May 4. He operates his barbershop as well as a .When Gov. Tim Walz last week ordered barbers, hair salons and other walk-in service counters to remain closed for all but curbside retail sales,...

public

Frederick Melo

Twin Cities news, sports, politics, entertainment and business from the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Minnesota's first newspaper.

St. Paul barbershop reopens despite coronavirus lockdown

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS