Giuseppe Acampora and his staff were excited to finally welcome walk-in customers at his two salons in Poughkeepsie and the Town of Wallkill this coming Tuesday, until bad news came last Thursday.

That is when they learned they will have to hang on for at least two more weeks before they can cut hair again.

 

What You Need To Know


  • Mall salons were expecting to reopen on Tuesday until last Thursday’s announcement

  • Some salon owners are seeking variances

  • A salon owner says his employees and customers are being overlooked by the state

 

“Everybody was upset,” Acampora said during an interview in the Galleria at Crystal Run’s empty promenade outside C & C Unisex Salon, one of two local salons that his family has run since the early 1990s. “It really put a damper on everything.”

Governor Andrew Cuomo announced during his May 28 daily briefing that stores located in malls can reopen for Phase 2 only if they have exterior doors that open to the outside. Mall tenants without exterior doors, even salons, must wait until June 23 when Phase 3 is expected to begin for the Hudson Valley.

Both Acampora’s salons are in Galleria malls in Poughkeepsie and the Town of Wallkill. Neither have exterior doors.

“I really find the fact that we were put on the back burner is really unfair when it comes to being inside the mall or outside the mall,” Acampora said.

Poughkeepsie Mall management agreed with Acampora in a statement issued Wednesday. A spokesperson wrote that because of this change, locally owned stores are in “grave danger of not being able to open their doors.”

Acampora has reached out to local and state officials seeking a remedy, without any luck yet.

“The mall has more free space than most grocery stores or outside department stores,” he said. “There are clear lanes of traffic and tons of safety measures ... It’s not right that solely because we are in a mall, we are being overlooked.”

Acampora said he has made significant investments to clean the salon and provide protective gear for stylists, and points out that both salons are located close to exterior doors.

At Crystal Run, the salon is about 100 steps from the mall’s main entrance. Customers would pass a restaurant with chairs upside down on tables and a gym that is not operating.

At the Poughkeepsie location, a door inside the salon opens up into a small hallway and an exterior door. Acampora said he is lobbying local officials to consider it an exterior entrance to the salon.

Officials with the Town of Poughkeepsie building department said they would have to get a better look at the salon’s setup to make a judgement, adding that any business seeking a variance to an executive order should also consider contacting the Empire State Development Corporation.

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