Hi folks,

As you may have heard, BC is allowing salons to reopen around Victoria Day weekend. This is causing a great deal of anxiety in the beauty industry as we all try to navigate risk vs reward in terms of regaining income at the expense of potential COVID-19 exposure.

After thinking on it for around a week, I have decided that I am not willing to reopen ASAP as part of the first wave. I think queer and trans folks have done our fair share of being the guinea pigs for new medical data, and it is well within our right to sit this one out a little longer.

We are still navigating adjusted lease payment agreements with our commercial landlord, and we have no concept of what the future holds. And, so, Zed and I are taking complementary approaches: Zed will be reopening as soon as they are permitted to by the BC government. I am happy to support Zed by not bringing even more bodies and risk potential into the space, so that they may have full control over their sanitization measures.

At this time, I am extending our tentative re-opening date to June 15th. By early June, we should have a clearer idea of what the first phase of reopening the economy looks like, and will hopefully be able to make more solid decisions as a community space.

Many of you have continued placing orders and booking appointments, and I am so grateful for both your loyalty and your patience. Orders will be fulfilled as soon as I am able to safely reach the shop; appointments will be pushed forward in an effort to keep clients from needing to rebook over and over as we keep changing our reopening date. This is, in my personal experience, a truly unprecedented time, and it has been a rocky road determining the best course of action for myself, my coworkers, and of course, my community.

Love, warmth, and socially-distant-fistbumps from Big Bro’s Barbershop.

Sincerely,
Jessie Anderson
Big Bro’s owner