Beauty parlors plan to SUE Governor Newsom to let them reopen and slam him for not providing any evidence backing his claim California's outbreak began in a nail salon

Nail salons in California are planning to sue the Governor Gavin Newsom after he revealed that California's COVID-19 outbreak began in one of the state's venues.  

California is shifting into Phase 2 of its four-stage reopening plan on Friday, which will allow some sectors of 'low-risk' retail including clothing stores, bookstores and florists to get back up and running with physical distancing restrictions or with operations limited to curbside pickup.

But when asked at a Thursday news conference about why nail salons and hair salons weren't included in the second stage of the plan, Newsom matter-of-factly stated that community spread of the virus in the state began in a nail salon but gave no further details.

'This whole thing started in the state of California, the community spread, at a nail salon,' he said. 'Let me just remind everyone of that. I'm very worried about that.

+5

Gov Gavin Newsom revealed that California's COVID-19 outbreak began at a nail salon as he described the state's latest steps to reopen its economy at a news conference on Thursday

'Many of the practices that you would otherwise expect of a modification were already in play in many of these salons, with people that had procedure masks on, were using gloves, and were advancing higher levels of sanitation.' 

The Professional Beauty Federation of California has now published a section on their website: 'Time to Sue Governor Newsom.'

'We understand that not all salons and stylists will want to reopen under the current threat of this pandemic. Nothing in our legal challenge will force anyone to act against their will,' the statement read.'The PBFC has decided to sue Governor Newsom to force him to reopen our salons much sooner than his vowed 'months not weeks' timeline.

+5

Three California counties - Modoc, Yuba and Sutter - have allowed a variety of businesses including salons, gyms and tattoo parlors to open this week in defiance of Newsom's statewide stay-at-home order. A customer is seen getting her nails done at in Yuba City last Wednesday 

+5

The Center for American Liberty is also campaigning for a re-opening 

+5

The Professional Beauty Federation of California which represents salons is planning to sue the governor in the hope of securing a more regulated opening

'We just believe that the formal education/training of our stylists warrant our safe reopening under additional 'social distancing' protocols, which our State Board and industry stakeholders have been putting together for weeks.

'Governor Newsom cannot change the goal posts in the middle of the game by transitioning from reducing the contagion curve to stopping the spread altogether by extending the shutdown for several more months. If he does, most of our barbers, stylists, manicurists, and skin care professionals and the businesses they operate in will either fold up shop or resume their livelihoods in open defiance to feed their families and keep their businesses afloat. 

'With the proper PPE and procedures in place, our licensed professionals can safely resume their services and contribute to California's economic recovery.'   

There are currently at least 66,558 cases of coronavirus in California and 2,687 deaths in the state. 

+5

Professional Beauty Federation of California which represents salons is planning to sue the governor in the hope of securing a more regulated opening. Customers wait for to get their nails done at the Nail Tech salon in the Yuba Sutter Mall in Yuba City, California, on Wednesday

On Thursday, Newsom added that state health directors have put 'red flags' on nail salons as high-risk, likening them to gyms and hair salons.

Those businesses will be included in Phase 3 of the reopening plan, he said, without offering a timeline of when that step will come as it will depend on how the virus progresses. 

California is home to 11,000 nail salons, with 80% owned by Vietnamese Americans. 

'If we don't take action now to protect our investment and livelihoods, people could misunderstand,' said Christie Nguyen to the LA Times who runs 18 Nail Bar in Tustin.

'It's just baffling to know why he would come out and say that,' she added. 'It could be misleading to the public when we are allowed to open again since everyone's afraid of COVID.' 

'People should not feed into any hysteria around this whole issue since every public place is a place where there's a chance to spread the disease,' said customer Windy Olaya, of Orange to the Times.

'If you walk into an establishment and workers aren't wearing masks, it could cause fear, sure, but if you see them following guidelines, why wouldn't you want to support them?'

On Monday morning, the PBFC plan to file the suit in federal court to demand salons conduct a regulated reopening.

'We were 100 percent behind the lockdown, so that we would not overwhelm our hospitals,' the group's legal counsel Fred Jones said to The Daily Beast. 'However, after two months of the lockdown, in which, by Gov. Newsom's own admission, we have succeeded—we have checked the mark, we have flattened the curve—we were anticipating that the governor would allow for gradual reopenings of our beauty salons under strict new guidelines.

'A lot of our stylists are on the brink of starvation in order to make their leases and make ends meet,' Jones said. 'So you have a volatile combination of desperate clients and desperate stylists. We know that will lead to thousands of our stylists going underground and moving kitchen to kitchen and house to house. That's reality. Nobody can argue that. So the real question is: how do you stop that from happening if you're the governor? You can't.'