A Northwest Portland hair salon is one of several Oregon businesses listed in a federal lawsuit against Gov. Kate Brown for requiring temporary business closures to prevent the transmission of COVID-19.
“I do not agree that a complete halt to my business is required, and it threatens my livelihood more and more with each passing day,” reads a statement by Teri Schudel—a “hair extension artist” who operates her business (under the name Da Cielo LLC) out of a Sola Salon Studios franchise shop in the Pearl District—included in the lawsuit file.
Attorney James Buchal filed the complaint Tuesday afternoon on behalf of nine other Oregon businesses, including a Hood River tattoo parlor, a Salem furniture shop, and a Roseburg lingerie boutique. The lawsuit accuses Brown of violating a spate of constitutional rights by “arbitrarily” deciding which businesses are essential to remain open during a pandemic.
On March 23, Brown issued an order mandating the closure of “non-essential” businesses, unless they could adhere to social distancing rules. That mandate is still in place, and will only begin to be lifted on a regional basis starting May 15, if a county can demonstrate a serious drop in positive COVID-19 cases.
Buchal argues that Oregon businesses should have been given an opportunity to appeal their identification as a “non-essential” business by the state.
“Instead of a government of laws, we have a totem pole of rights depending on your identity group, and the rights of ordinary Americans who just want to make a living are at the bottom of that totem pole,” writes Buchal in a press release accompanying the lawsuit.
Buchal also serves as the chair of the Multnomah County Republican Party, and has been vocal about his opposition to Brown’s business restrictions through that platform as well.
The lawsuit goes on to accuse Brown of intentionally limiting businesses owned by Republican Oregonians and “irrationally” making decisions without consulting Oregon medical professionals (Brown has consistently followed guidance from Oregon’s top hospital physicians and public health experts in writing executive orders related to COVID-19).
It also argues that, at 127, the state’s death toll from COVID-19 isn’t high enough to elicit a serious response—and that the economic impact from COVID-19 could result in the same number of deaths, “if not higher.”
“The conduct here will drive untold numbers of individual citizens to take their own lives in despair as the enterprises or careers they have spent their lives building are arbitrarily destroyed,” the complaint reads. “It should shock the Court to find that [through] the rubric of reducing the risk of infection…the Governor has in substance sentenced many Oregonians to death and misery.”
It’s implied that Schudel of Sola Salon is one of those Oregonians. In her submitted testimony, Schudel says her store’s closure has impacted her ability to pay monthly bills and to keep clients.
“I am fearful for my economic future, and believe it is a violation of my fundamental Constitutional rights to the freedom to make a living to be shut down when I am healthy and there are many less restrictive ways for Oregon to address the public health problems raised by COVID-19,” Schudel writes.
UPDATE — May 13:
The Mercury received an email from a spokesperson for Sola Salon Studio—a national chain with more than 500 franchise locations—clarifying Schudel’s relationship with their business and objecting to her statements regarding the Portland store. We’ll let the store speak for itself:
“Ms. Schudel is an independent beauty professional who rents space in the Pearl District location and acted independently in filing the lawsuit against Gov. Brown without our knowledge or the knowledge of the local franchisee. Ms. Schudel is not the owner or operator of the Sola Salon Studios Pearl District location. Sola Salon Studios fully intends to keep locations closed until state and local officials allow us to reopen and, even then, local franchisees will only reopen their buildings if the appropriate safety measures are in place. They will also allow independent beauty professionals operating in their locations to return to work when they choose to.”
Read the full complaint here.
“I have the right to open my business and sicken and kill people,” is what she means.
Meanwhile, more intelligent people in the same exact position:
To my fellow hairstylists, we need to wait it out. We need to be patient because as soon as this is over, we will be a stronger community and our clients will return. Imagine some of your clients realizing they actually like their natural color! People will always need their hair done. Please, let’s all come back onto the scene when it is safe to do so.
https://www.mtexpress.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/hair-salons-are-not-essential/article_a8b2af2e-8415-11ea-9f00-ff922be72f71.html
“No, not open. We’re cleaning,” said Angelica Camarena, the owner. “It’s closed for safe (safety) for everybody. We need to be safe for my customers, my friends, sister, everybody.”
https://keyt.com/news/santa-barbara-s-county/2020/04/07/sb-co-public-health-salons-and-barbershops-are-not-essential-businesses-at-this-time/
The problem with this country is we’re finding out what a total sham our economy is. When an economy is propped up by the service industry providing services not essential for living, well then this is what you get.
What is essential?
Access to clean water and soap
Food
Housing
Health Care
Utilities (gas, electric, phone)
Everything else is actually not required to sustain life.
Someday, Republicans who are tired of their leaders humiliating them might just say something. Or even kick out clowns like Buchal.
If not, they’ll go the way of Susan Collins and the dodo.
As someone who has been unemployed for 2 months now I understand the fear, uncertainty, and doubt. That said we cannot give into it. If you are willing to risk your life, your families lives, and total strangers lives to make a buck you are a shitty human being and I hope you get the death you so desperately deserve.
Also if any of these people have minor children at home CPS needs to protect them from their parents.
We appear to be moving the goalposts. The original stated purpose of the lockdown was to “flatten the curve” such that severely effected patients didn’t overwhelm our health care system. Now, for some the purpose has apparently shifted to “prevent each and every instance of an infectious disease”. That was never the point.
@ 5 Yeah, and originally we were told that this was minor and less a problem than the flu. The situation has changed. Deal with it.
Hair salons aren’t essential businesses. Pot shops and Liquor stores, those are essential. If she wants to work during the pandemic, she should stop doing hair and start selling drugs
Gov Brown hair doesn’t looked like she’s missing a hair stylist, not to mention Pelosi & other public “personalities” on the tele. Everyones outside shopping at Target Walmart Home Depot Lowe’s etc touching merchandise walking by & next to eachother etc …theirs no absolutes at the stores that are currently open. Why can we buy clothes at Target or Fred Meyer but Kohl’s Macy’s is closed..The number don’t lie in nyc the hardest hit concentration age group 0-19 no deaths majority deaths age group 70 & up. We have to keep seniors safe ok why are their so many seniors shopping then? Who do you think holds the most political, corporate & financial power teenagers, 20 or 30 somethings . We’re home keeping certain age groups safe period. As it stands right now you have to catch it to create antibodies so for certain age groups it’s meaningless to catch it but for other it’s possible death sentence.
@6 – Your reasoning is faulty. No one ordered an unprecedented lockdown because they believed this was “minor and less a problem than the flu”. These unprecedented restrictions were implemented because this was viewed as an unprecedented threat, the threat at the time being that the severely effected would overwhelm our medical system and the infections needed to be stretched out over a longer time (aka “flatten the curve”) in order to avoid that. Now the restrictions are being maintained for, what exactly? So no one gets sick ever? If the rationale changes, the measures need to be re-evaluated, not simply and uncritically mandated as the new normal.
8 Ages 0-19 have had some deaths. Now they are seeing in NYC a spate of kids who had it suddenly suffering from massive, bodily inflammation. Some of those kids have also died.
@5 the original purpose of the lockdown(s) was so that the federal government could get its shit together and provide the testing, PPE, ventilators, and financial assistance the country required. as the trump administration has chosen to do nothing, we’re basically in the same boat we were in when things started getting bad. we are in no way prepared to “be open” and when everything does open there will be more illness and death than there has been to date.
the catastrophic loss of every kind could have been prevented. the fact that they have chosen to do nothing (and lie about how great things are going) are purposeful. it is incomprehensible how evil these assholes are. they really do not care how many people die or suffer. they do not care at all.
there has been no sympathy or empathy or compassion or concern expressed in any way for the dead, the families of the dead, the front line workers and what they are going through, or the people of this country and everything they are going through.
Oh poor, dumb, misinformed Teri. I mean, there’s no way she keeps her chair at Sola now, right? You don’t speak for the owner, there, “independent contractor.”
@11 – So you agree that your comment “Yeah, and originally we were told that this was minor and less a problem than the flu. The situation has changed. Deal with it.” Was irrelevant, misleading, and counterfactual?
@13 I think you’re addressing the wrong person. @6 wrote that.
that being said, it is not irrelevant, misleading or counterfactual as that is EXACTLY what trump told people numerous times between january (first case in this country) and the day he was forced to admit that the virus was (and is) far deadlier and changed his tune to: that if 100,000 to 200,000 americans died, he’d consider that doing a great job.
given his continued refusal to do a damn thing other than lie, we’re going to be looking at possibly between 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 deaths in this country before an effective vaccine is available to the public.
Yup, you’re correct, I addressed that to the wrong person.