Colin Flaherty reviews and gives commentary on news with headlines " Extended video of racially divisive nail salon brawl in Brooklyn offers another angle" and "Protesters swarm nail salon after employee beats down customer"
[links and excerpts below]
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-metro-nail-salon-fight-20180806-story.html
AUG 06, 2018 | 1:45 PM
Angry protesters called for a boycott of a Brooklyn nail salon Monday days after a botched eyebrow treatment led to a violent indoor melee complete with pushing, shoving and a worker swinging a broken broomstick.
Tensions were so high between the mostly-black protesters and the Chinese employees of New Red Apple Nails salon that cops, shortly before 3 p.m., had to escort the workers out of the shop into a van for their protection.
Outside, demonstrators, who backed the black woman and her grandmother whose complaints sparked the scuffle, showered the workers with booes -- and a few tossed objects.
Some held signs that said “Black $$$ Matter,” and shouted “shut them down.”
ccording to store owner Huiyue Zheng, who was arrested after the fracas along with customer Christina Thomas, the footage shows Thomas becoming aggressive with salon staff following what she considered a botched eyebrow job.
In that video, according to Zheng, an upset Thomas is seen leaving the shop after having one brow trimmed, then coming back with a friend to further argue her case. Zheng claims that when salon employees tried to calm Thomas down, pushing and punching ensued, which led to the violence at the center of Monday’s protests.
The incident was sparked by a $5 eyebrow job gone awry. According to Zheng, Thomas complained that too much hair had been removed from one of her brows, then didn’t want to pay for that procedure or the $14 pedicure she’d just received.
“They didn’t complain about the pedicure,” Zheng said of Thomas and her grandmother. “Then, one of the lady goes to do eyebrows. She j says ‘I don’t like it. I don’t want to pay anything.’So my boss says, ‘`You have to pay.’”
https://nypost.com/2018/08/06/protesters-swarm-nail-salon-after-employee-beats-down-customer/
By Shari Logan, Lia Eustachewich and Bruce Golding August 6, 2018 | 4:15pm
Scores of angry protesters forced the closure of a Brooklyn nail salon Monday, throwing bottles and shoes as cops escorted out the owner and a worker in the wake of a racially charged brawl between employees and customers.
The tensions were reminiscent of the black-on-Asian boycotts of nearby Brooklyn businesses of the early 1990s, which were followed by the deadly three-day riot in Crown Heights in 1991.
