By Walter Elliott
NEWARK – The Newark Municipal Council, as early as its Sept. 20 public meeting, seeks to more than reset a 57-year-old law on operating hours.
Council members present at their Sept. 7 meeting had approved the introduction of Ordinance 23-1456 that would amend Title Viii’s chapter 3 on barber shops. The proposal would allow Sunday operation and enlarging hours of operation on the other days of the week.
Councilman Luis Quintana’s late-starting amendment – it was added to Sept. 7’s agenda the day before – would also “add personal service establishment, definitions and hours of operation.”
23-1458, going by its title statement, would add beauty shops, nail and hair braiding salons and day spas to the barber shop – or PSE – category. The amendment would define what legal activities be permitted within these establishments – and what illegal activities inside and outside would be prohibited.
The 1966’s $50 fine would be raised to $250 – but what else would be spelled out is fluid as of press time.
Part of that fluidity is coming from Quintana and his colleagues while they sort out the bill’s language and details.
Only the title, and not the bill’s body, has been posted on the City of Newark’s website. Council President and Central Ward Councilwoman LaMonica McIver, at the council’s Sept. 6 pre-meeting, had asked that a proposed amendment body be produced overnight for council reading and consideration.
It should also be noted that the council’s Sept. 20 meeting agenda will be posted after Local Talk’s press deadline.
Council members want to hear from affected PSE owners, customers and neighbors at the to-be-scheduled public hearing to fine-tune the amendment.
Newark’s elders, including some of its administrators, took the Sept. 6-7 opportunity that whoever is coming to barber shops this summer and the like and say that they must cease Sunday operations are not coming from them.
“We don’t know who sent out this notice; I’d like to see a copy myself,” said City Clerk Kecia Daniels Sept. 6. “I was told that someone was going out to barber shops and telling them they can’t be open on Sundays.”
“I asked the administration – including Engineering and Health – and we don’t know who sent out this notice,” said Corporate Counsel Kenyatta Stewart. “I didn’t know about it until someone requested an interview, when it was in the news.”
“I’ve been getting calls from particular barber shops and beauty salons that a person came in and told them that the city was enforcing closing on Sunday,” added North Ward Councilman Anibal Ramos, Jr. “I want to know who put out the notice.”
“This all came because someone went out there and said that the city was going to close businesses,” said Quintana “That’s not so. Somebody is trying to smear the administration, the council and everyone.”
Quintana and Daniels explained to McIver that the 1966 Chapter 3 law prohibited Sunday barber shop operation. There was an attempt to add Sunday hours in 1966 but it wasn’t followed through.
“I remember the public hearing that was held here in 2004,” recalled Quintana. “Then it fell through the cracks. Instead of the revision, the law wasn’t enforced.”
Quintana’s revision is an attempt to state what is allowed and not allowed in Barber shops and related PSEs. He, Ramos and South Ward Councilman Rev. Patrick Council said that they have received quality of life complaints of the said businesses by their constituents.
Those complaints included smoking marijuana and/or hookahs outside, drinking outside and playing loud music into late night. Council went as far as saying that he has had complaints that some barber shops became hookah lounges and illegal gambling halls at night.
Quintana said that he has drafted his revision after talking with several barber and braiding shop and beauty parlor owners. The councilman added that he is considering forming a PSE trade group to combat illegal activity.
There are similar laws on Elizabeth and Jersey City’s books.
