Five Towns barber shops, hair, nail salons, tattoo parlors to close Saturday at 8 p.m.

Five Towns salon owners reacted to a directive that Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued on March 20 ordering all barber shops, nail and hair salons, and tattoo parlors to close, effective March 21 at 8 p.m.

The governor tweeted the directive at 8:48 a.m. "These temporary closures are not going to be easy, but they are necessary to protect the public health," he stated.

"What we do next will have a massive impact on the trajectory of this virus in New York," the governor had tweeted earlier in the week. "We can only maintain public health by staying apart. The decision each of us makes now will practice us all tomorrow. Stay home."

Ali Artz, owner of the Ambiance Salon in Hewlett, said that she had a mixed reaction to the directive. “It's upsetting and we're all very scared about the financial losses we’ll all be incurring, but our health and safety has to come first,” Artz said. “I take the responsibility that my staff has bills to pay very seriously. This has been a very conflicting time for me deciding whether to stay open or not.” 

Artz said the nature of her business is working closely with others. “We’ve been cleaning to the best of our ability and taking all necessary precautions,” she said. “However the nature of our service is working in close proximities with others.”

MarieLisa Mennella owns Bewitched at Cheveux, a beauty salon in Woodmere. She acknowledged that she wasn’t surprised by the news. “With all the other closings happening, it was only a matter of time,” Mennella said. “We're hoping that as many people as possible will come in before we close tomorrow night.”

Mennella said business has been on the decline for the past couple of weeks. “This time of the year with the holidays coming up, we’d be doing double or triple of what we’re doing right now in terms of business,” she said. “Over the last two weeks, we have lost a declining expendage of clients.”

The hope for Mennella is that the salon will be open in the near future. “Hopefully we won’t be closed for as long a stretch of time that everyone is expecting so we all have a job to go back to,” she said. “We’re going to be compliant as everyone should be and we’re hopeful and faithful that everything will be better in the end.”