Bad news for you and your Tacoma barber: That haircut will have to wait for a while yet
The barbers sensed the shutdown was coming — not that it made it any easier.
Closed since March 16 by order of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, many have spent the last six weeks and counting living in uncertainty — and without a steady paycheck.
“Like everybody else that’s no longer able to work through these conditions, it’s pretty hard to cope, because your livelihood is gone,” said Sean McDaniel, the 51-year-old manager of Sam and Terry’s Barbershop on Hilltop.
Founded in 1958 by Sam Daniels and Larry Terry, Sam and Terry’s was the first black-owned barbershop in Tacoma. Over more than 60 years, it’s become an institution and a trusted gathering spot.
The shop is so beloved in the black community that in 2018 it was purchased by the nonprofit Tacoma Ministerial Alliance — just to keep its doors open.
Now the doors at Sam and Terry’s are closed — like the doors at every other barbershop and hair salon in Tacoma — and precisely when they’ll reopen remains a mystery.
“No one really knows when the whole thing is going to be over,” said Chris Keyes-Walker, a 22-year-old barber at Sam and Terry’s. “The longer it goes, the more it hurts.”
Predictably, the shutdown has created a sense of precarious unease and fear among out-of-work barbers who spoke to The News Tribune this week, not long before Inslee announced an extension of the state’s stay-home order and a phased approach to reopening.
Like all of us, the barbers don’t know what the future holds or what life will look like when they’re allowed to come back. In the meantime, they’re simply trying to survive — with many scraping by on unemployment and help from friends and family.
Perhaps less predictably, very few expressed growing anger or a desire to reopen before the public health experts say it’s safe. While they spoke in frank terms about the financial realities — including the sudden loss of individual income and the likelihood of some shops being unable to survive — there’s a bigger picture, most said.
“I’m not angry at all. This is about safety. This is about people. It has nothing to do with anything else,” said McDaniel.
Donny Hales, the owner of Supernova Barbershop in Tacoma’s St. Helens neighborhood, offered a similar perspective.
“I want to be alive, and I want to be able to share my life with my wife,” said Hales, acknowledging that he’s eager to come back to work but only when “it’s safe, and it’s safe for the clients as well.”
“I don’t want to pass it on and see my people die,” Hales said. “Those are things that bug me. I’m actually upset at people who don’t want to do social distancing. I’m worried more about other people.”
Still, there’s no denying the economic sting.
Nate Carvalho, 33, has been giving haircuts at Supernova for the last five years. As an independent contractor — meaning, like many barbers, he rents chair space at a shop and is responsible for withholding his own taxes — Carvalho typically brings home about $1,700 every two weeks after expenses.
It’s money Carvalho uses to support his young family — a wife and 1-year-old daughter — and it disappeared almost overnight when barber shops closed.
Now, Carvalho logs onto the state Employment Security Department’s website every Sunday to file his claim, he said.
Because he’s self-employed, it’s a benefit Carvalho wasn’t eligible for until Congress passed the CARES Act.
Carvalho didn’t receive his first check until mid-April, he said.
“It was tough. It was hard. That month before unemployment kicked in, it was a little stressful,” Carvalho said. “Luckily, we got a little bit of help from my family — from my parents — to tide us over.”
“I get it. I understand why it needs to be shut down. But at the same time, I’m itching to get back and wanting to get back,” Carvalho said.
Donnie McMasters, 48, has been a barber at Supernova for the last five years. He and his wife have a 5-year-old son and live in Tacoma’s South End.
McMasters said his wife is working, so he considers his family “very fortunate.” But he also acknowledged that when barbershops were ordered closed, his biggest concern was his family.
“A few of us have kids, and we all have someone we love we take care of. I was most worried about what I was going to have to do to make sure that my kid was OK,” McMasters said.
Before the coronavirus pandemic hit, McMasters said he had been saving money in hopes of opening his own shop.
Now?
Everything is up in the air, he said.
“I’m starting to get very on edge. I’m a very go-go-go kind of person,” said McMasters, before adding that he’s “not a scientist,” so his opinions on when barbershops should be allowed to reopen “don’t really matter.”
“I just need to go back to work, man,” he said.
This story was originally published May 3, 2020 at 7:00 AM.
