SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) — Nail salons across Central New York were excited to open along with other businesses in Phase 2.
That excitement came to a halt once Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office announced that there would be a change in the types of businesses that can reopen.
“Until the last minute till the day before we opened, they said ‘nope … nail salon is not a part of it,’ so we have to cancel all of our appointments for the next two weeks,” said Diana Huang, the owner of Cosmopolitan Salon and Spa in Syracuse.
Nail salons were assumed to be included in the professional services category of Phase 2. Instead, hair salons and barbershops were the only services that were cleared to open.
“It’s very frustrating. Customers calling, employees, they don’t know what we can open … right now everybody just very frustrated,” Huang said.
Huang says she had 1,000 appointments booked for June 1 through June 15 and she was forced to cancel all of them.
“We post a message on our Facebook and Instagram … most of our customers follow us on there so we put an announcement saying that all of your appointments is going to be canceled,” Huang said.
Huang says she has been out of business for almost three months, so when she saw that professional services would be a part of Phase 2, she prepared to safely reopen.
“I spent a couple of thousand dollars as of now… I just purchased six gallons of hand sanitizer … our nail techs are required to wear masks, I ordered over 50 of the face shields… I also ordered the table … each nail station you know how you go to the cash register they have this plastic stand so I ordered them for each nail station,” Huang said.
It’s been almost a week since Phase 2 has started and there has not been any word from on when nail salons will officially be able to reopen.
