COLLIERVILLE, Tennessee —
Is your salon or barbershop allowed to open? It depends on which suburb you live in.
Memphis’ ‘Back to Business’ plan calls for close contact businesses to remain closed, but some municipalities want to reopen early. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee's office tells Local 24 News municipalities in Shelby County must follow the local ‘Back to Business’ plan, which doesn't allow nail and hair salons to open until the week of May 18th at the earliest. Yet some salons are hoping they can open next week.
“Things have been changing everyday, we really haven’t had time to prepare to say we’ll be open by this date,” said Tracey Hardaway who owns Hair Candy Salon in Germantown. Reopening day means prepping her germantown salon with essentials to keep her clients safe.
“The supplies that we’re going to need for sanitation and to protect our customers is limited,” said Hardaway.
Unlike Germantown, other suburban salons were guided by their government websites that stated they could open Wednesday May 6th under the governor's plan. But Governor Bill Lee made clear today, Shelby County is not included and must follow guidance in its own back to business plan.
“It’s been hard, naturally if you don’t work there’s no money coming in,” said Melissa Cannon, owner at Southern Style Hair Salon and Boutique.
Cannon’s Collierville salon has been closed for 6 and a half weeks. But she’s had to make do.
“The landlord has worked with me,” said Cannon. “I was able to receive the SBA loan which was great so I could pay the stylists.”
When salons do open, they will have to see one client per stylist, currently have no walk-ins and add cleanings between clients.
Local 24 was told municipal mayors had a joint call Friday after the governor's update, but guidance to follow the governor are still listed on many of the municipalities websites.