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New York barbers, stylists face indefinite coronavirus shutdown

A statewide closure of barber shops, hair and nail salons, tattoo and piercing galleries, and other personal grooming businesses goes into effect Saturday night.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Businesses such as Gary's Barber Shop in Orchard Park are going to have to close up indefinitely as of Saturday evening.

Unfortunately, this is another example of small business taking a hit with the coronavirus, also known as COVID-19.

"I've been cutting hair for 52 years, but never in 52 years have I encountered anything like this," Gary Carini said.

Inside Gary's Barber Shop on Friday, the phone was ringing off the hook with people checking their business hours to see if they could slip in for a trim before the 8 p.m. Saturday deadline.

That's when the statewide closure of barber shops, hair and nail salons, along with tattoo and piercing galleries and other personal grooming businesses goes into effect.

Carini says he and the other three barbers in his shop can do some more cleaning in the meantime like they have been doing with sanitizer and wipes, but lost time is definitely going to trim his bottom line.

There's no end in sight.

"That's the problem," he said. "They tell you you have to close tomorrow night by 8 o'clock, but there's no end in sight."

Over at Viva's Hair Salon, it's much the same.

"It's been a little chaotic because we can also only operate at 25 percent as well," Olivia Ebers said. "And there's six of us, so only two can work at a time, so we're trying to juggle our schedules."

Ebers expected to be working through midnight to fit in all her clients on Friday, because they're trying to ease the usual Saturday crowd of customers. And there's extra work in between all those appointments 

"Between clients, wiping off handles, chairs, disinfecting combs, not reusing capes, running the towels on extra hot and everything," she said.

As for personal impact on stylists as independent contractors working in a salon:

"We don't get unemployment, and we don't have benefits, so everything we work for pays our bills, pays our insurance, pays our health care," Ebers said. "And without that, we don't have anything, so it will be stretch, for sure."

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