Salons in Sunday opening to beat lockdown
HAIR salons around Burton opened on Sunday in a bid to squeeze in appointments that will be axed during lockdown.
Many who do not usually work on Sundays or Mondays called clients hoping to move their appointments forward or face cancellations until December 2.
Despite what will be the second closure for salons this year during the pandemic, many remain upbeat they can weather the storm again.
One hairdresser’s which decided to open on Sunday and yesterday was His and Her Hair in Guild Street, Burton.
Co-owner Lauren Omahoney said: “We don’t normally open Sundays or Mondays but we want to be loyal to our customers and offer them appointments.
“We have been fully booked; so busy and we just don’t have enough hours in the day.
“I thought we would have had the lockdown last week during half term rather than now.”
Gardner’s Barber Shop, at Bannatynes gym in Wellington Road, has only just opened as the fourth hairdressers for Jon Gardner, who also owns salons in Barton, Uttoxeter and Ashbourne. Nick Fitzgerald, who manages the new salon, said: “I think we always knew there would a second lockdown.
“We did everything we could possibly do. We had all the PPE, the hand sanitising and kept customer numbers down, then it is really frustrating that all these measures didn’t make a difference. We did all that and took a [monetary] hit on that as we didn’t want to pass the expense to the customers.
“We need to give customers the confidence to come back so it is very disappointing we have been put in this position.
“We will weather it, we haven’t got a choice. “We are a driven bunch and we will get through it.”
David Kirk-locke, of Bangs Salon in Station Street, Burton, said: “We totally back the decision to go back into lockdown and hope the Government supports all self- employed people in this current climate.”
“Our team really did pull out all the stops since Saturday evening rescheduling appointments in November and moving appointments to December.”
Some of his staff will be working as late as 11.30pm up to tomorrow to meet demand.