Dundas Beauty Hair Salon owner talks about COVID-19 Impact

Dundas Beauty is a hair salon that is located in the Regent Park area, at 442 Dundas Street East, close to Parliament and Dundas. Their area of service focuses on the versatility of hair including braiding, weaving, wigs, hair dyeing and more. The shop is co-owned by black business owner, Theresa Betou.

Theresa was forced to close her shop shortly after Premiere Doug Ford announcement on Tuesday March 23, 2020, that all non-essential store and services would be ordered to close as of Tuesday March 24th, in an attempt to slow down the spread of Covid-19.
 
Hair salons and barbershops have everything to do with neck up and prior to Covid-19, few people would ever think that they would see a time when you would not be allowed to get a hair cut because it is unsafe. Unfortunately, hair cutting requires close client contact and touching the heads of clients and as a result is considered an easy way for the coronavirus to spread.  

The closure that was only supposed to last 14 days ended up being about 3 months. This has caused a lot of hardships for small shop owners.  Shops like Theresa’s relies on the income she receives from customers to not only pay the rent of the business but also to pay for her personal rent and expenses. Not having clients means no money for the rent of her shop, for her employees or for her own personal expenses. Yet she still has to fulfill payments to the landlords even though the space is not being used.

At one point, Theresa and her partner, were considering selling the business and was receiving offers to do so. Instead they decided to wait and see what would happen. Luckily their landlord was understanding so Theresa was able to work out an agreement to pay what they could as well as to pay increments.
 
For some of the shop employees who relied on the shop’s income, Theresa allowed them to make their own decision to open up their homes to cut the hair of loyal customers, but she didn’t feel that was safe especially if they had families, and she chose not to do that.
 
When the news came that non-essential businesses including hair salons were finally able to reopen, Theresa was caught off guard. Despite people calling for hair appointments, Theresa needed two weeks to top up on products and sanitize the store. Safety is important to Theresa and not only is mask wearing was required she only takes clients by appointment only which enables her to put limits on how many people are in the shop at any one time. This is still difficult because the shop also sells shampoos and other hair products in which people normally can walk in from the street to purchase.  As Theresa says, “it is a little tough right now but we will just need to take some time to readjust to the new normal then we can figure out a way how business can be improved while staying safe”.

For Theresa, one big take away from this pandemic is making sure that she puts her and her employees health first and business second.

“We used to be open to all hours of the night, right up to 1 am to meet the needs of our customers. Staff also often had to limit their lunch breaks. Now we only take certain amount of appointments per day and stress the importance of taking care of our selves first,” says Theresa.

Maybe the new normal, at least for shops like Dundas Beauty, won’t be so bad after all.

By Gaelle Kosi with contribution by Adonis Huggins
(Gaelle Kosi is a summer journalist with the Focus Media Arts Centre).