Laura Glesby Photo
Fatou braids a client's hair, hopes for more landlord accountability.
A new layer of city regulation is coming to local hair, piercing, tattoo, and nail salons — sparking a debate over the burden of annual inspection fees, and prompting one African hair braider to hope that more leverage against neglectful commercial landlords is on the horizon.
Four years after a state law passed in 2019 mandating a uniform annual local inspection process for salons across Connecticut, New Haven’s health department has proposed an ordinance amendment enacting such a system.
On Oct. 3, city Health Director Maritza Bond appeared before the Board of Alders Legislation Committee to outline a proposed ordinance amendment that would officially bring the city into compliance with the 2019 state law.
Environmental Health Director Rafael Ramos and Health Director Maritza Bond.
According to Bond, the city had lagged in proposing this ordinance amendment at first in order to focus all resources on addressing the Covid-19 pandemic, and then to provide local businesses with more time to recoup revenue and revive a client base as they recovered from the public health crisis.
“We wanted to be realistic,” she said. “Our businesses did struggle.”
The health department did conduct inspections of salons and other businesses to ensure that health and safety precautions were in effect during the pandemic. Now, Bond has proposed an ordinance amendment that would officially put the city in compliance with state law.
“We are not there to condemn individuals,” Bond said. She told alders that the health department’s goal is to inform local businesses and help them comply with health and safety regulations, not to penalize them.
The state’s guidelines for salon sanitation require active licenses; the proper use of personal protective equipment; covered waste bins for hair, skin, and nail clippings as well as single use items; disinfecting of reusable tools; regular hand washing and cleaning practices; frequent cleaning of spa basins; proper chemical storage; and functioning hot and cold water and sewage systems, among other requirements.
Bond said her office would hold webinars in English and Spanish and visit salons in person ahead of the start of inspections. She estimated that the city has 192 salons that would be affected by this ordinance, a majority of which are hair salons and barber shops.
Bond proposed an annual inspection fee of $250 per establishment — which, she said, is “not going to be a significant revenue driver.”
"Hair Styling Goes Back To The Motherland"
Alders Jeanette Morrison and Eli Sabin.
“I get the safety piece,” said Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison. “This $250? I don’t think that’s good.” She asked Bond how her office arrived at the $250 fee, which salons would pay on top of the annual $100 license renewal charges for individual stylists, piercers, and tattoo artists.
Bond explained that the $250 fee is based on the cost of the labor involved on the part of city staff to make inspections happen. “It’s going back into the staff doing the work.”
“The city is going to pay regardless. These are our residents,” Morrison responded. The fee could “make a person think, ‘Maybe I don’t want to be an entrepreneur.’ ”
She pointed out that many of the salons that would be affected by this new layer of regulation draw from African and African-American cultural traditions passed down across continents and through many generations.
“Hair styling goes back to the motherland,” she said. “For the city to want to make money… That shouldn’t be the goal.”
Bond said she’d be open to charging a different amount for the fee.
Downtown/East Rock Alder Eli Sabin asked whether the city’s health department has enough sanitarians to carry out these inspections.
“Do I have enough sanitarians? No,” responded Bond. “I put in a request for four sanitarians [during the budget process in the spring] and I was denied. I just can’t ignore [the state law] anymore.”
When it came time to deliberate, Westville/Amity Alder and Majority Leader Richard Furlow proposed instating a $250 inspection fee for salons with at least five employees and a $175 fee for salons with fewer than 5 employees.
He said that in his experience, haircuts are “$50 a pop.”
“I don’t know where you go,” laughed Morrison.
Morrison proposed a $150 annual inspection fee for all salons. She also proposed that the city collect these fees in May, rather than right after Christmas and New Year’s in January.
Morrison’s $150 ultimately won the support of her colleagues.
“When you have lower fees, it makes people more likely to comply,” said Sabin.
The $150-annual-inspection-fee version of the new law now heads to the full Board of Alders for further review and a potential final vote.
"They Can Mediate"
Fatou's storefront across from St. Raphael's hospital.
To Fatou, the owner of a longstanding African braiding salon at 1407 Chapel St., the upcoming inspections seem less like a burden and more like an opportunity.
Fatou’s Braids has operated out of the same Edgewood storefront since 2004. The property has aged, with a number of deteriorating floor tiles and a ring of water damage on the ceiling, where a leak often springs. The landlord isn’t responsive to her maintenance requests, she said.
“If you are not in a position of just picking up and moving to a different location, you are in a hard place,” Fatou said, taking a brief respite from sectioning a client’s hair into zig-zags on Tuesday afternoon.
The floor at the back of Fatou's...
...and the leak-plagued ceiling.
“I’ve lost business many times” from having to temporarily close her shop and attend to severe leaks, Fatou said. She does not have the disposable funds to fix the floor by herself, or the roof access she’d need to address the water leaks.
Fatou said she hopes regular inspections could provide a “middle man” to help business owners mediate concerns with their landlords. “They can mediate,” she said of the inspectors.
She wondered, though, whether her business would be subject to the same sanitation processes of salons that work with dyes and chemicals. “We don’t all have the same services,” she said.
Headz Up barber Troy Walters.
Several blocks away at Headz Up Barber Shop at 185 Whalley Ave., manager Troy Walters processed the news of more regular inspections with a shrug.
“We are prepared, as you can see,” Walters said, gesturing to his license posted above a mirror. “We all ready, so it doesn’t matter when they come.”
I'm puzzled by Maritza Bond's decision to raise fees, considering the inadequate staffing in her department. It would be more productive for her to focus on persuading the Board of Alders to increase her department's budget. This way, her department could compete with other cities that offer better compensation and benefits. Currently, the staff is overworked and underpaid. I remember when the staff used to smile when they saw you; unfortunately, it seems like only three of them still do.