Nail Salons in Oakland
By Guest Contributor Momo Chang, originally published at the Hyphen Magazine Blog
Recently learned that the city of Oakland is trying to make it a lot harder for people to open nail salons and laundromats, via an emergency ordinance. What is that, you ask? The gist of it is that if you want to operate a new nail salon or laundromat, you’d have to apply for a major conditional use permit, which costs around $3,000, which means that many mom and pop owners will think twice about opening a nail shop in Oakland.
What do we know about nail salons? A lot, and also not a lot. In the latest issue of Hyphen, I wrote about the trend of green nail salons. For years now we’ve known and suspected that the chemicals used in nail salons are not good for the workers, or for consumers. We also know that upwards of 80 percent of nail shops in California are owned and run by Asian immigrants, mostly Vietnamese. It is a popular field for new refugees/immigrants because you don’t need good English skills and there is whole existing community to help new people get into the field (cosmetology tests in Vietnamese, Vietnamese cosmetology schools, Asian-owned shops, etc.).
According to the city’s resolution, this additional barrier would be “necessary to preserve the public peace, health, welfare, or safety and to avoid a direct threat to the health, safety, and welfare of the community….” At first when I read that, I thought they were talking about the health and safety issues of the workers in nail salons because of the chemicals issue and lack of proper ventilation. But no, the reasoning behind it is because nail salons are not attractive, and would deter more high end businesses from moving in.
There are some interesting comments in the post at local blog A Better Oakland, which is the first place I have seen write about this (thanks to our creative director, Erica, for pointing it out). People are either appalled at the city council and rightly agree that nail shops and laundromats are things that local people use a lot, while a few others think there are too many nail shops as it is. It’s true; in some parts of Oakland, along certain boulevards, there’s probably an average of a nail shop on every former. But what type of business would go there instead? I really don’t know. There are already many empty storefronts as it is.
However, very few of the commenters recognize that perhaps the bigger picture of nail salon proliferation is health and safety of the workers, and thus consumers and those who live around the shops. For example, an oversaturation of the business leads to more competition and driving down of prices, which could mean worse working conditions for employees. I have not been to the council meetings where they’ve talked about this issue, so perhaps there is more to this ordinance, but based solely on the way it’s written, it seems like their reasons behind limiting these businesses is pretty weak. I mean, why? And is this ordinance really necessary? People who want to open nail shops are just going to open them in neighboring cities, like Alameda or Emeryville, which doesn’t address the worker safety issue.
In my opinion, as the nail salon industry has grown, the people who work there have been made an easy target, and this ordinance is just another example. From the sketch by Anjelah Johnson, who makes fun of nail salon workers, to salons getting robbed, and now this.
Anyway, here are some of the more interesting comments from A Better Oakland’s post about Oakland’s emergency ordinance:
“Higher value stores” for whom? Nail and hair salons are among the few owner-operated businesses left. I think there’s a market for a combo laundromat, nail shop, liquor store for the multi-tasking women of Oakland (with wifi and coffee, of course)…”
“Over recent years my business has been located upstairs from a wig shop, a low-end auto insurance company, and two nail shops, among other retail businesses. My experience of nail shops is that they are the least troublesome except in one regard: ventilation. It is a serious health issue for the workers, patrons, and upstairs neighbors to be protected from toxic vapors, especially the workers (exposed all day). I believe that the ventilation, odor, and toxicity aspects are the things to focus on. The rest is a non-problem. The nail salon folks are going to have to compete on the leasing market. We don’t have to regulate them other than for health and safety.”
“Nail shops are as American as barbershops. If a landlord wants to rent to a nail shop, let the City Council and Planning Department butt out. Emergency, my foot.”
Thoughts? I’d love to hear from an API perspective and specifically from organizations that work with nail salon workers.
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Photo by *cedro*’s flickr account (feet for thoughts) under Creative Commons.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
malted_tea wrote:
Thanks for providing a link to the ordinance, which states: “The proliferation of nail salons and self-serve Laundromats along major retail corridors has
become an increasing concern to Councilmembers, retail store owners and merchant
associations. These groups are worried that an over concentration of these uses could drive away
retail businesses in commercial nodes and along commercial corridors. Staff has been tasked
with researching and proposing an ordinance to establish appropriate levels of these uses and
propose discretionary controls to regulate locations for these types of activities. In order to allow
sufficient time to hold public hearings on this issue, staff is proposing a set of interim
discretionary controls.”
You mentioned a personal view (” nail salons are not attractive, and would deter more high end businesses from moving in”) but I don’t know if that’s the case.
I don’t get that sense from the ordinance alone but my concern is around the fact that the document goes on to mention charging the fee is not gonna make a difference…but we’re gonna do it anyway until we think of something better (See “SUSTAINABLE OPPORTUNITIES” in the ordiance).
A big WTF flag shot up there.
Aren’t nail shops and laundomats part of the group called “retail store owners and merchant associations?”
Posted 25 Sep 2009 at 11:49 am ¶
Kaonashi wrote:
I think there should just be better standards, period. Some of those places aren’t exactly safe for employees OR clients.
Posted 25 Sep 2009 at 2:15 pm ¶
curlyscales wrote:
There are four nail salons within a 2-block radius in my neighborhood. I hate it. I would rather one or two good salons.
Posted 25 Sep 2009 at 2:35 pm ¶
Shaeq wrote:
I was surprised to not see this mentioned explicitly in the post, but is it a way to keep immigrant businesses out of the specific retail areas? You know… racism, by allowing only those business owners who can front the extra cash.
It reminds me of the whole bunch of crap that went down some years back where black women who had neighborhood businesses braiding hair were forced to close down or go to cosmetology school, where they’d needlessly learn to give white women perms.
Posted 25 Sep 2009 at 3:53 pm ¶
ashlynn wrote:
I kind of agree with this. In my neighborhood in Brooklyn NY, there;s a nail salon on every block. There’s several blocks where multiple salons sit right next to each other. Though they are a great startup business, they are also a bit of a nuisance. you really mean to tell me there was no other kind of business that could have been established there that would also benefit the community? Surely we could use healthier food options other than the prerequisite pizza, chicken, and chinese. Some sort of community area. Or how about another library, since the city so kindly shut down one to build a parole center in it’s place? No one will suffer for lack of getting their tips done, trust me.
Posted 25 Sep 2009 at 11:53 pm ¶
Berkeley Economist wrote:
It is a matter of supply and demand.
Nail shops are profitable because people go in and get nails done, and hence they stay open.
Same goes for Starbucks and McDonalds. The best way to get rid of nailshops if you don’t go, and they go out of business. I wonder why there aren’t many Ferrari dealerships or 5 – star restaurants around…I would LOVE TO SEE MORE OF THOSE AROUND.
Healthy food options and other ideas are great, but they ARE NOT ALREADY OPENED FOR BUSINESS because they are not profitable.
Posted 26 Sep 2009 at 10:46 am ¶
Elusis wrote:
I’ve seen nail salons open and close, over and over, in the same retail storefront in my Oakland neighborhood. The gossip (so assign what reliability to it that you will) is that some organized crime types have found it works well to get a big loan and maybe some grants or tax concessions to open a business, staff it with very low-paid immigrant women whose English is poor (and who thus have less access to knowing about worker’s rights, minimum wage, etc.), then run it into the ground and pocket a hefty part of the initial startup money.
Whether that part is true or not, I do wonder about the logic behind trying the same kind of business in the same space, over and over, with no perceptable change in marketing, services, etc. Seeing the same chunky blue or red “NAIL SALON” neon letters go up again and again is depressing and frustrating.
Posted 26 Sep 2009 at 3:26 pm ¶
ashlynn wrote:
@Berkeley Economist. Sure they are. It’s the marketing strategy and the work effort that is the problem. It’s awareness as well. I can’t begin to county how many times people I know have resolved to eat better but fall back in the same habits because the right options are just not available in their area. So it’s back to the same fried greasy mess. The problem is also that a lot of healthy options are too expensive for people in low income neighborhoods, and no one is willing to develop a store that would change that. Environmentalists, green people, they love to push all these great alternatives, but have no idea what it takes to implement them in places with less privilege, places that are overwhelmingly minority areas.
Posted 27 Sep 2009 at 11:13 pm ¶
Slush wrote:
My first reaction to this is extreme suspicion. One of the most famous Constitutional law cases in American history was a remarkably similar ordinance in San Francisco requiring that (let’s see if I remember correctly) no laundromats were allowed in wooden buildings without a permit, supposedly for risk of fires. At the time, late 1800s, most Laundromats were Chinese run, and nearly all of them were in wooden buildings, so the [intended] result of the ordinance was to shut down all the Chinese laundries. No permits to continue operating in wooden buildings were issued to Chinese applicants, while all but one non-Chinese applicants for permits were granted. The Supreme Court found unconstitutional discrimination.
So I haven’t got all the details, but this salon situation seems eerily similar.
While there surely are legitimate environmental concerns about salons, as someone pointed out, this just means they’ll move to Alameda or Emeryville, and it’s not like air pollution is bound by city ordinances. Also, the ordinance doesn’t say anything about being based on environmental concerns. It’s not at all clear that this ordinance is really to protect any workers or address environmental and health issues. It is purely premised on the city’s power to regulate urban planning and design.
Posted 30 Sep 2009 at 2:53 pm ¶