EXCLUSIVE: House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited a San Francisco hair salon on Monday afternoon for a wash and
blow-out, despite local ordinances keeping salons closed amid the coronavirus
pandemic, Fox News had learned.
In security footage obtained by Fox News, and timestamped
Monday at 3:08 p.m. Pacific Time, the California
powerhouse is seen walking through eSalon in San Francisco with wet
hair, and without a mask over her mouth or nose.
The stylist doing her hair can be seen following her
wearing a black face mask.
Salons in San Francisco had been closed since
March and were only notified they could reopen on Sept. 1 for outdoor
hairstyling services only.
'I am sharing this because of what everyone
in my industry and my city ... is going through right now.'
— Salon owner Erica Kious
Salon owner Erica Kious, in a phone interview with Fox
News on Tuesday, shared details of Pelosi’s visit. Kious explained she has
independent stylists working for her who rent chairs in her salon.
“One of the stylists who rents a chair from me contacted
me Sunday night,” Kious said.
A screengrab of the text message she received from one of
her stylists, and obtained by Fox News, said: “I’ll be there at 2:45 tomorrow.
Pelosi assistant just messaged me to do her hair.”
Kious replied: “Pelosi?”
A text message from a hairstylist to Erica
Kious, salon owner, that he would open the salon to provide House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi services.
“I was like, are you kidding me right now? Do I let this
happen? What do I do?” Kious told Fox News, while noting that she "can’t
control” what her stylists do if they rent chairs from her, as “they’re not
paying” at this time.
Kious cast Pelosi’s visit as a double standard.
“It was a slap in the face that she went in, you know,
that she feels that she can just go and get her stuff done while no one else
can go in, and I can’t work,” Kious told Fox News, adding that she “can’t
believe” the speaker didn’t have a mask on. (From the footage, it appears Pelosi
had some kind of covering around her neck.)
“We’re supposed to look up to this woman, right?” Kious
said. “It is just disturbing.”
Asked for comment, Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill
maintained that the speaker was following the rules as presented to her.
“The Speaker always wears a mask and complies with local
COVID requirements. This business offered for the Speaker to come in on Monday
and told her they were allowed by the city to have one customer at a time in
the business. The Speaker complied with the rules as presented to her by this
establishment,” he said.
But the owner pushed back.
Kious said Pelosi received a wash and a blow-dry, but
told Fox News that “you’re not supposed to blow dry hair” according to
coronavirus safety precautions for hair salons.
“We have been shut down for so long, not just me, but
most of the small businesses and I just can’t – it’s a feeling – a feeling of
being deflated, helpless and honestly beaten down,” Kious said.
“I have been fighting for six months for a business that
took me 12 years to build to reopen,” she explained. “I am a single mom, I have
two small children, and I have no income.”
She added: “The fact that they did this, and she came in,
it’s like a slap in the face.”
Kious told Fox News that she had expected to be able to
reopen her salon in July, and prepared her space in accordance with local
guidelines.
“There were rules and regulations to go by to safely
reopen, which I did, but I was still not allowed to open my business,” she
said, noting that she installed plexiglass partitions between sinks and seating
areas, and ensured that all salon chairs were six feet apart, along with proper
air circulation from open windows.
“They never let us open,” she said, while adding that she
is unable to reopen outside because her salon specializes in hair color, and
using chemicals outside is prohibited.
But Kious said she is not alone in the hardships she has
faced amid closures during the coronavirus pandemic.
“This is for everybody,” she said. “I am sharing this
because of what everyone in my industry, and my city, what every small business
is going through right now.”
Kious told Fox News that she was a recipient of a $12,000
Paycheck Protection Program loan, which was created to help small businesses
stay afloat amid the pandemic under the bipartisan CARES Act (which Pelosi
backed), but still is forced to shut down her salon for good within the next 30
to 60 days.
“No one can last anymore,” she said. “I have also lost 60
percent of my clientele because everyone is fleeing the city.”
Kious said that the area where her salon is located has
turned into “a third world country,” saying that “every other storefront is
completely vacant and shut down and boarded up.”
“And because of the shutdown, and the store closures,
we’ve lost people, my clients, and my employees, and that is due to the
politics in San Francisco,” she said, adding that the homeless population is
“everywhere” and “defecating” all over the city.
“It has gotten so extreme,” she said. “It is so night and
day from what it was a year ago, that everyone is fleeing.”
Brooke
Singman is a Politics Reporter for Fox News. Follow her on Twitter at @BrookeSingman.
