Don’t think you can get a haircut inside just yet: Hair salons and barber shops in Long Beach and Los Angeles County will have to wait until Tuesday afternoon at the earliest to know if their health departments will allow them to reopen indoor services.
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a new monitoring system on Friday that created four color-coded tiers for regulating reopenings across the state. The new system puts LA County in the “widespread” risk level, or purple tier, and is the most restrictive. However, the regulations allowed for indoor services with modifications at hair salons and barber shops, as long as county health departments agree to change their health orders. The new regulations also allow indoor malls to reopen.
LA County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said at a Monday press conference that the Board of Supervisors and the county’s health director, Barbara Ferrer, would be discussing the protocols moving forward on Tuesday.
“We recognize the state has allowed us to open and we want to do it in a very thoughtful process, so tomorrow we will be discussing it and making announcements hopefully by early afternoon,” Barger said.
Long Beach has its own health department and could decide to deviate from the county decision in its own health orders, but so far the city has remained generally in step with the county.
After the governor’s announcement, Mayor Robert Garcia said the city’s health department would make the decision with the county. Hair salons and barber shops in Long Beach have to wait until the city changes its health order to reopen.
The new regulations specifically allow only hair salons and barber shops to reopen, despite calls to reopen other personal care services, like nail salons. Personal care services are not allowed to reopen until the county reaches the “substantial” risk level, or red tier.
Long Beach’s health director Kelly Colopy explained the rationale behind letting hair services open for indoor services while still requiring nail and personal care services to operate outside as a matter of how much close interaction the different services require.
“When you’re cutting someone’s hair, you can be behind them —most of the time there’s not as much interaction face-to-face and because when you’re doing nails, then it’s always face-to-face interaction,” Colopy said. She also noted that hair salons largely operate on an appointment basis, making contact tracing easier.
Chris Hamrock, co-owner at Salon Wire in Zaferia, said he’s looking forward for the opportunity to show that hair salons can operate indoors safely, hopefully leading the way for other industries to reopen. His salon just last week started offering dry haircuts only outside because that’s all they were able to do realistically do. The governor’s previous order allowed for hair salons and personal care services to work outside.
“I hope they open us up but we’re just riding the wave right now,” he said.