Mark “Mad Canine” Rains, proprietor of Mad Canine Tattoo on nineteenth Avenue, had already booked a shopper Tuesday having been unaware Kern County had simply slid again into the state’s most restrictive degree of pandemic orders.
Nevertheless it’s no drawback: Although they needed to shut for months in spring due to the pandemic, native tattoo retailers are allowed to maintain working simply as they did final week — hair salons, too, in addition to barbers, nail specialists, estheticians, therapeutic massage companies and electrologists.
The state of affairs is for them an enormous reduction at a time some companies and all church buildings are being informed to maneuver outdoor.
To institutions allowed to remain open this time, on account of modifications to the state’s system of tiered restrictions, it is also vindication that their industries can and do function safely.
Rains made a joke in regards to the state’s earlier actions amounting to pointless precautions for an trade the place sanitation is every day routine.
“Our automobile already got here with airbags,” he stated.
An identical sentiment got here from Mark Lamas, proprietor of Panache: A Mark Lamas Salon. He stated state regulators did not anticipate salon homeowners to function as cleanly and safely as they’ve since being allowed to reopen in late August.
On Tuesday Lamas acquired calls from different salon homeowners asking him whether or not it was true, that they might keep open with out concern of state penalties, as had been threatened earlier through the trade’s closure.
He stated he feels terrible for the theater homeowners who’ve to put folks off this week. However he is additionally relieved for folks in his trade.
“You’ve got acquired an entire salon stuffed with joyful folks which can be in a position to work,” he stated.
Bakersfield gymnasium proprietor Mark Pacheco, a self-described extremist who views the pandemic restrictions as authorities overreach and refuses to shut his enterprise, stated it might be too troublesome to maneuver his operations outdoor as required beneath the state restrictions that took impact Tuesday.
Plus, when different companies shut down beforehand are allowed to stay open, he stated, “it does not make any sense why gyms are all of the sudden on the (expletive) record.”
However being open for enterprise was no assure of consumers. Spa trade staff stated enterprise continues to be gradual regardless of summer time’s reopenings.
A receptionist at Bliss Nail and Spa on Calloway Drive, Kim Duong, stated she was joyful the salon did not have to shut once more however that there is not a lot work today.
“It is a luxurious. You do not have to have it finished,” Duong stated. “We’re having a tough time.”
She added that many individuals referred to as the spa Monday asking if it was being compelled to close down.
“Lots of people are nonetheless calling,” she stated Tuesday. However clients stay scarce. “They may are available in one other time.”
“I am actually, actually joyful, to be trustworthy with you, that we nonetheless have a job.”
At Mad Canine Tattoo, proprietor Rains stated, clients had been itching to get tattoos in Might after being unable to take action since March.
Issues had been very onerous earlier than that: The shutdown ate up his financial savings and he needed to look to family and friends for assist. Though his silkscreen T-shirt enterprise did not pull via the pandemic, he stated, his tattoo store is now doing fairly nicely.
“I can not complain about something,” he stated.
Comply with John Cox on Twitter: @TheThirdGraf
