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Barbershops and Community: COVID’s Impact on Community Spaces

 



As COVID-19 first started to surge in March and April 2020, one unexpected consequence of the quarantine was the lack of access to barbershops. Barbershops have been the subject of government closure because of a perception that they are a non-essential business and the proximity required between barber and their customer. Apart from just providing grooming services, however, barbershops hold a unique place in many communities as central hubs for meeting and interacting with other community members. This blog post will look at the current state of barbershops by focusing on two barbershops in two different cities: Cutz Lounge The Grooming Lounge in Detroit, MI and M & K Barbershop in Queens, NY.

            Dante Williams opened Cutz Lounge six years ago in Detroit. Cutz Lounge was the reincarnation of the barbershop that Williams owned in Inkster, MI. From the outset, Williams focused on delivering what he views as a vintage haircut experience. The vintage quality extends past the decoration and jazzy ambiance. Williams recognizes the place that barbershops and barbers hold in connecting community members, but COVID has had a dramatic impact on the innerworkings of Cutz Lounge. While the three-month closure period earlier this summer was an abrupt interruption of his operations, after returning to business things are not as they once were. The dynamics of the barbershop are no longer the same. People no longer wait for a haircut and have an opportunity to talk about the local game or what is happening in politics. Any haircuts occur by appointment only and the ritual seems more transaction: people come in, get a haircut and leave.

             Fernando Fernandez owns the M&K Barbershop in Queens, NY. Located near the 103rd Stop of the 7-train, the Bernardino Barbershop seems to be a carbon copy of other Dominican owned shops: loud and crowded. Two large television screens are always on showing baseball and playing bachata. In one corner older men play checkers while everyone screams about the Yankees during the summer months and Las Aguilas del Cibao during the winter months. Fernandez says that the shop is eerie now. Social distancing guidelines mean that people are not allowed to mingle in the shop. Fernandez now thinks his shop is too small – making sure that barbers are six feet apart severely constricts real estate. New York has had some of the strictest quarantine measures and kept barbershops closed until the latter end of August. Fernandez and his barbers book customers by appointment, but this has not been a difficult transition. Many regulars already booked their haircuts by appointment – they know that it is the only way to save a spot on the seat of popular barbers and it is part of the barbershop’s culture. When asked to sum up the community atmosphere created at the barbershop, Fernandez uses a slang Dominican term: “Bacano.” Simply, it was great. He does not know if there are new spaces that have taken over the community space function of a barbershop. He does know, however, that his barbershop is much too quiet and there are more people leaving than coming.

            Barbers have an intimate connection to their clients. Apart from providing a grooming service, a barber must also be a pantomath: a barber knows a little about everything. Nowadays, however, barbers need to know a whole lot about COVID. Both Fernandez and Williams highlight that there is a sense of fear in their communities. The pandemic has been all consuming and has impacted every part of their community. Politics also dominate discussions. The 2020 presidential election may have started in earnest this past summer, but for Fernandez it felt like it had been happening for ten years. Williams also notes that the conversations he has with his clients are much more political in nature. The summer of unrest spurred by the murder of George Floyd have translated to conversations about policing and Black Lives Matter.

            When not flexing their muscles as master conversationalists, barbers are performing public health duties. Any patron that enters the Cutz Lounge shop wears a mask, and this is not a negotiable policy for Williams. Apart from recognizing his responsibility to adhere the government mandate, he recognizes the impact that collective action can have on outcome of the pandemic. For any “non-believers” who come to his store without a mask, Williams offers a facemask for a nominal fee of $1.00. Fernandez has a thermometer that he uses to quickly screen individuals before they enter his shop and has everyone wearing masks. Both shops clean all instruments before the next patron enters the store. For Fernandez, inspections have also become common place as health inspectors are more readily present to ensure that small businesses like his are compliant with state health mandates. Sometimes this is made difficult because the inspectors lack understanding of the services he is providing. For example, a patron may temporarily remove a mask to finish some aspect of the haircut or for a quick shave. He believes that the government should enforce safety mandates, but he also wishes it was done with a greater understanding of the community and businesses it is meant to protect.

            Like any business barbershops are adapting. The business aspect of the craft will recover. If we have learned anything in the pandemic as people grew out their hair, we learned that an America without haircuts is not a pretty America. People will continue to patron their local, trusted barber out of vanity. The other intangibles of the barbershop – dynamic community interactions created by people just hanging around the shop – however, may not recover until there is a readily available vaccine. Williams recognizes, with some disappointment, that this may continue even after the pandemic has abated. He has observed that people have become more transactional in nature and want to leave as quickly as possible. Let us hope that as America returns to some semblance of normalcy, we choose to retain the opportunities that gave us the opportunity to bond in person. As we hopefully abandon Zoom, let’s embrace just sitting at the barbershop.

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