New Flower Studio in Long Beach is a shop that has offered body piercing services since 2012, however, the pandemic has affected their business like it affected many other businesses, financially and emotionally.
Since 2012, the business had steady year-to-year growth in sales. Due to the pandemic, their sales as of February 2021 only reached about 50% of their 2019 sales. This loss is because of the inability for piercers to work under the mask. Nostril and septum piercings make up 80% of their income.
John Johnson, the owner of New Flower Studio, stated there is low enforcement of the health code in this department. “Lots of other [piercing] studios are still offering services under the mask, while they’re not supposed to be, and that affects us because clients can be quick to point out that other studios are doing it so we should be doing it too … the people who want to get services under the mask are going to find a way to get them, and that is money that is never going to come back to us”.
According to Long Beach’s Health and Human Services department hair salons and barber shops are only strongly discouraged from doing services under the mask, but such services are not prohibited. Whereas the California Department of Public Health says all piercing in the nose and mouth area is “suspended”.
Johnson has made multiple attempts to contact the city about when they are allowed to work under the mask. “The city of Long Beach is allowing barber shops to work under the mask, but not allowing us to. That’s about 80% of our income. If there are conditions that required us to close, and conditions that were met for us to reopen, it would make sense that if they are preventing us from working under the mask, that there must be some set of parameters that allow us to work under the mask…they can’t tell me what it would take for us to work under the mask again, there has to be a number”.
The first shutdown of the Studio happened in March 2020. They opened and closed multiple times until their most recent reopening which was the beginning of February. Vanessa Jo, one of the body piercers described this experience as “a roller coaster ride.”
“There were a lot of ups and downs and twists and turns that we didn’t expect,” Jo said. One of those ups and downs was the short notice reopenings from the city which were hard on the studio.
“We have very sensitive equipment, meaning it cannot fail,” Johnson says, “It requires maintenance and tests from an independent laboratory that tells us our machines are working, so when the city says ‘you can open tomorrow’ how many studios are just going and opening and I’m the guy who has to go ‘well we have to send our tests off to the laboratory’”.
“A lot of us are soul piercers,” Jo said, “at least those of us in this studio. What we do for our work isn’t just a job. It’s what we live and breathe and it’s what our souls need. It is important soul work for us … the mayor would make announcements and those were the days we were glued to our TV thinking ‘is today the day we see something? ‘No? Not today? Cool.’ It was emotionally draining.”
Aside from the financial stunt, it has been a large source of stress to get incoming customers to follow new rules. New Flower practices social distancing and mask wearing protocols within their establishment. Only one customer is allowed in at a time, which means for the moment, they are only piercing persons 18 and up. (Pre-pandemic they pierced minors 16+ with an adult present).
They are operating by appointment only, (no walk-ins, which were allowed pre-pandemic) and there is a Google Form that is completed before you enter the studio. This has always been something you fill out, however COVID-19 specific questions have made it more extensive.
They wipe down all touchable surfaces, have a UV light they alternate between rooms, air purifiers, and use the front and back doors for ventilation.
As a final statement Johnson said, “We as a studio and members of the Association of Professional Piercers, choose as part of our business ethics to work in the confines of the health code however that evolves,” Johnson said.
“That said, I still maintain as a business owner in Long Beach, that the city of Long Beach itself has mismanaged our particular industry and that greatly affects us,” Johnson continues, “the business on the other side of COVID will not be the business before COVID…but we’re going to ride it out and play our cards right, which means doing whatever it takes to keep the business above water without compromising the company’s integrity”.