The smell is the first thing you notice — ash and smoke. Other, more subtle signs of fire damage linger throughout the barbershop if you know where to look. Soot cakes the sinks and chairs. The lights are out and a white air filter blasts away on the floor in the center of the shop.
“I’m just stuck right now,” said Reginald England –or simply England, as he likes to be called– proprietor of Hair on the Floor, a barbershop in a plaza on Madison Avenue in Covington.
On Sunday, a fire broke out in another business in the plaza, Carols Pearls Chicken. Smoke from the fire poured into the shared ventilation system in the building, filling every business’ interior and damaging the building’s material infrastructure.
All the shops in the plaza have closed as a result, including Hair on the Floor and the adjacent convenience store, Pike Food Mart. Investigation into the cause of the fire is ongoing.
The owners of Carols Pearls Chicken and Pike Food Mart could not be reached for comment.
The fire has derailed not only the operations of England’s business but also his sense of purpose.
“It feels like my days are pointless right now,” he said.
LINK nky profiled Hair on the Floor earlier this month, highlighting England and his team’s efforts to both run a successful business and benefit the community as they approached their 10th anniversary on July 13.
In that story, England said, “It is about building relationships that’s going further than just a haircut. It’s about teaching my other barbers how to be better men and how to become better business men. It’s bigger than just a haircut, though. If it was just a haircut, we’d just cut hair and go home. But we’ve been here for a reason, and we want to continue to be here. But we would like the support of the community to go further than where it’s at.”
Now it all seems to have been cut short. England and his three staff members have all lost their main source of income. He’s not eligible for unemployment due to his status as a small business owner.
On top of that, his building insurance lapsed before the fire, meaning that no money to make repairs is incoming. He’s brought in a few restoration companies to survey the damage and offer estimates. The lowest estimate he got was $10,900.
“I still have children that I have to take care of,” England said. “I’m trying to figure out the next move for the workers to make sure that they’ll be able to provide for their families.”
Hair on the Floor has started a Gofundme page to help recoup lost income and restore the building. England has also started looking for work outside of the business to make ends meet.
It’s unclear how long it will take before the air quality in the plaza returns to normal, but he guesses it would take about two to three months to get up and running again.
Still, his future is in flux, and he hasn’t decided if it would be worthwhile to try and save the business or move on to something else. Before the fire, Hair on the Floor was the site of community events, including a back to school cookout and community flag football game with the local police department. Closing the business would arguably deprive the community of a positive place for people to gather, a safe place where kids could come to hang out and learn from positive role models.
“I feel like I surprise myself because I taught myself how to be more professional,” England said in LINK’s story from earlier this month. “I taught myself how to manage a team of good role players. I learned how to say sorry to a lot of things. I learned how to be more patient and realized everything’s going to always work itself out if you keep pushing through it.”
Although he doesn’t exude the same optimism as before, there’s still an indefatigable hardiness behind his words, as if the patience he’s cultivated throughout his life has not been worn down by the week’s events.
“We’ll get through it,” he said.
