More than two dozen salon, spa and barber shop owners and workers have asked Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to allow them to reopen.
The group represents more than 350 facilities across the state and delivered a letter with an 8-pillar plan for them to open safely.
Called the Safe Salons for MI Coalition, the pillars include detailed requirements for best practices, customer safety, social distancing and more.
“Michigan’s licensed cosmetologists, barbers and their team members are capable, ready, and excited to get back to work meeting the needs of our clients,” said Lisa Dennison, a regional director for Michigan Supercuts and Cost Cutters salons located across the state. “Our salons have always met detailed health and safety standards, and we’ve developed a comprehensive plan to go even further to keep everyone who walks through the door healthy. We urge Governor Whitmer to lift her ban on our jobs immediately.”
The plan is modeled after what other states have done to open, including Ohio.
Eight specific and comprehensive steps to safely allow workers return to their job sites at barber shops and salons include:
- Administrative controls for workers, including daily screening for workers to ensure they’re healthy before starting each shift, requiring workers to stay home if sick, maintaining appointment and walk-in records including date and time of service, name and contact information to assist in contract tracing if needed, and more.
- Access control for customers and guests, including staggered entry, prohibiting the return of products, accepting customers by appointment only where possible, asking clients to wait outside in their vehicle until their appointment time, and more.
- Social distancing on the job site for both workers and clients, installing barriers between employees where 6 feet of distance cannot be achieved and more.
- “Next level” best practices to ensure healthy hygiene on site will include the laundering of work clothing daily, eye protection for workers, limiting the personal items clients can bring with them for their appointment and more.
- Sanitation requirements include the cleaning of merchandise before stocking, constant disinfection of work areas and instruments, disposal of single-use materials, and much more.
- Personal protective equipment will be used by all workers, including masks. Clients will also be asked to wear masks, and face coverings will be provided upon entry to those without one.
- Should a client later test positive for COVID-19, our facilities will work with local health departments to identify potentially infected or exposed individuals to help facilitate effective contact tracing.
- Following facility closure each day, facilities will undergo deep cleaning with disinfectant cleaners approved by the EPA as effective against human coronavirus.
“The coalition was grateful for the opportunity to work with state regulators in developing the plan; We now ask the Governor to let us implement it,” said Caileigh Hoff, co-owner of Xclusive Studio in Brighton. “We work safely because the health of our clients and the health of salon, spa and barbershop workers like me are worth the effort. We’re ready to get back to our salons – regulated, sanitary environments – to properly protect ourselves and our clients. We’re ready to get back to work.”
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