TORRINGTON – The hair was flying and cleaning supplies getting a workout as local barbers got back to work on Friday, some six weeks after they were ordered to shutter their businesses and stop seeing clients as the novel coronavirus made its way across the Cowboy State.
The closure meant hardship for many of those businesses. Restaurants stopped letting people eat in their establishments, opting instead for drive-up or delivery services to keep the doors open. Downtown businesses locked their doors, closing completely or working by appointments.
Among the hardest hit were barbers and cosmetologists, who were prevented from seeing clients under the orders issued by Gov. Mark Gordon and state health officer Dr. Alexia Harrist. But, during an April 27 press conference from Cheyenne, Gordon relaxed those orders, giving the green light for people to get back to work – with heightened awareness of public health and safety.
The local perspective
Matlock’s Barber Shop is the kind of joint you’d see on old re-runs of classic TV shows.
It’s an old school barber shop – one where the smell of the coffee machine mixes with the pomade, the patrons should all be on John Elway’s advisory board in Denver and the barbers finish off the haircuts with an old-fashioned straight razor shape-up.
Things were just about back to normal at Matlock’s Friday morning. The conversation centered around movies you just have to cancel your plans and watch if you catch them on TV – Forrest Gump was the hands-down winner. One customer worked at the hospital, another was in the military, and at Matlock’s most everyone fits in.
It looked so routine, in fact, the cloth masks on the faces of both barbers and their clients served as one of the few reminders that, while things seemed back to normal, this was still the ‘new normal.’
Matthew Matlock, who owns and operates the shop on Main Street in Torrington, said he was out of work for about six weeks after the order that forced barber shops and salons to shutter their doors as a preventative measure against the spread of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus responsible for an ever-climbing death toll around the world.
He’s happy to be back at it.
“This is our first morning back and it’s been good to see everybody and make them look good,” Matlock said between cuts. “It got booked up pretty quick. I tried to get the booking thing out to as many people as I could, so it’s tough. Hopefully I’ll be able to squeeze everyone in so I can try and catch up.”
Matlock’s, and all of the other barber shops, salons, nail palaces and gyms were allowed to open their doors on Friday, albeit with some restrictions – like the masks.
“We’re doing what we can,” Matlock said. “We’re following the restrictions. Some people are still travelling quite a bit, and we need to be vigilant about asking them if they have any symptoms and wear our masks, and make sure they wear masks, too.
Early convert
At His and Hers Salon and Barbershop on East A Street in Torrington, Ryelee Baros – a 2011 Torrington High School graduate and 2018 graduate of the barbering program at Eastern Wyoming College – was another of those hit by the closures. Between clients on Friday, Baros said he’d actually stopped cutting hair several days prior to the closure orders being issued, out of concern for his family and his clients.
“I actually took it under my own responsibility to take time off,” Baros said. “I didn’t know for how long. But when it started become an issue – I think the first case in Cheyenne had cropped up – that’s when I was, ‘Maybe it’s time.’
“It’s just common sense – we’re standing close, touching people constantly, all day,” he said. “Part of our schooling – a lot of what we go to school for – is sanitation and disinfection and stuff. But it was just too risky to work at that time.”
So, with the amended orders from Gordon going into effect on Friday, Baros donned his mask, set up industrial-sized bottles of hand sanitizer and started booking clients – one at a time and hour apart. The front door of His and Hers Salon remained locked, except when letting clients in or out of the business, and things returned to a semblance of normal.
Gone for the time being, though, is being able to walk in and get a haircut. Baros said by 10 a.m. Friday, he’d already turned away two men who didn’t have appointments, for example. And there’s no waiting in the shop – people show up for their appointment, Baros trims their locks, and they leave.
Then, the cleaning begins.
Before COVID-19, drapes – the sheet-like covering that goes over the client and snaps around their necks to catch stray hair and keep it off clothing – would have been changed every four or five clients, Baros said. Under the new directives that went with the opening, each client gets a new, unused drape.
And, while maintaining a clean, hygienic work station has always been important – and the law under local health codes and state licensing requirements – Baros now uses two sets of clippers, scissors and his other tools of the trade. One set is used, once per client, while the other takes a bath in a sterilizer that uses ultraviolet light to do away with the nasties.
Combs are dosed with a strong anti-viral cleaner. Even the chair clients sit in is sprayed down with a different sterilizing solution and wiped off after each cut.
In limbo
One of the loudest arguments in favor of getting Wyoming back to work has been the impact closures have had on the economy. Classed as independent contractors, barbers and hair stylists have been particularly hard hit, with limited financial assistance available. Until just last week, they didn’t even qualify for unemployment insurance, Baros said.
“There were a few organizations, offering maybe $500 loans, and there was a small business loan I know a few people qualified for,” Baros said. “I personally didn’t get anything.
“Luckily, I had money saved, put aside kind of like rainy-day money,” he said. “And I had a raffle going – I was offering a free haircut every month for six months to the winner. I did pretty good on that; that got me by until now. But it’s been a rough time.”
Matlock was able to find help also during the closure, taking advantage of programs offered through the Small Business Administration to make sure Matlock’s Barber Shop would still be the best place to talk sports in town.
“There have been lots of programs to help,” he said. “The SBA has done a lot of stuff, so I was able to get an SBA loan to help with wages and rent and things like that for the shop. That has helped a little bit. They’ve offered unemployment for self-employed people, but the state is so backed up they’re having trouble updating the website for that.”
Even though the programs have helped him out, Matlock said he was eager to get back to work.
“I was glad to get back to work,” he said. “A lot of people were asking about when we were going to be open.”
Confident
Baros, too, is glad to be back, cutting hair. He got his start, fully self-taught before he enrolled in the EWC barber program, back in high school cutting hair for his friends.
“I just finished my first appointment back,” Baros said. “That was the longest span I’ve gone in probably 10 years without cutting hair.”
And clients were just as anxious for Baros to start cutting hair as he was. Even as Gordon announced the reopening plan last week, he said he started getting calls, texts and social media messages requesting appointments even as the press conference was going on.
And Baros is currently booked several weeks into the future, he said. He’s planning to be cutting hair six days a week, only taking Sundays off, until he’s caught up.
Around the time Gordon and Harrist issued the closure orders, when residents were still lamenting the cancellation of the Wyoming High School Athletic Association 3A and 4A state basketball tournament and thought COVID-19 just affected the elderly, closing barber shops seemed like a drastic move.
But Matlock said he saw it coming – and that he believes it was the right decision.
“You could just see it coming,” he said. “I think it was a good idea, even though Wyoming is pretty low in population, everybody needs to do their part to get through this.
“Nobody wants to be the one that gives it to somebody else,” Matlock said. “That’s a real concern.”
Baros agreed. But is it still too soon to start getting ‘back to normal?’
“If you would have asked me that a couple of weeks ago, I was actually debating that it was too early,” he said. “When I took some time and look at where we’re at, I know it’s still a risk.
“But I don’t think the risk is even as high as if we were someplace like Casper or Cheyenne,” Baros said. “I feel like I’m doing my part to stay safe. I feel confident – if I didn’t, I probably would have taken more time off.”
