NEWARK – Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal announced today that the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs (“the Division”) has established health and safety standards at reopening hair salons, barbershops, nail salons, massage establishments, and other locations offering personal care services. The standards are meant to protect customers, as well as licensed professionals and staff, by reducing the continued risks posed by COVID-19.

The Division’s action comes after Governor Phil Murphy signed Executive Order No. 154 allowing hair salons, barber shops, nail salons, massage establishments and electrology offices, as well as spas, tattoo parlors and tanning salons, to reopen to the public on June 22, 2020. These facilities have been closed to the public since March under Executive Order No. 107, which also closed other businesses, restricted travel, and required social distancing.

The Division’s order requires cosmetology, massage, and bodywork businesses overseen by its licensing boards to take certain steps to prepare for reopening to minimize person-to-person contact and to follow protocols for scheduling appointments, screening clients and staff prior to entry to the facility, use of personal protective equipment by clients and staff, adopting enhanced cleaning and disinfection practices, and staying informed about new developments and guidance related to COVID-19.

The Division developed its policies in consultation with the Department of Health, the New Jersey State Board of Cosmetology and Hairstyling, the New Jersey Board of Massage and Bodywork Therapy, and based on guidance from the Centers for Disease Control.

“As New Jersey continues to take steps to strategically reopen businesses, we can’t let our guard down,” said Attorney General Grewal. “As personal care services resume, it’s important that businesses and professionals offering these services — as well as their clients — take precautions to diminish the risk of infection.”

To protect licensed professionals, staff and clients, health and safety protocols for the reopening of cosmetology and massage and bodywork businesses offering personal care services include:

• Screening customers and staff no more than 24 hours before a scheduled appointment and immediately prior to or upon arrival at the business. Any individual who reports having any symptom consistent with COVID-19 in the last 72 hours, or having had exposure to an individual suspected of having had or confirmed to have had COVID-19 in the last 14 days, cannot be permitted to enter, whether for work or a schedule service.
• Requiring appointments for all services, with no walk-ins being permitted.
• Limiting the number of people allowed in an establishment at any given time. Only staff and clients receiving services by appointment should be inside the establishment.
• Spacing appointments to allow time for cleaning and disinfecting between customers.
• Checking temperatures for clients and staff prior to entry, regardless of symptoms. Individuals with a temperature over 100.4 shall not be permitted to enter the shop to work or for an appointment.
• Taking steps to reconfigure the space within the business to ensure at least six feet of distance between individuals wherever possible and implementing adaptations to the space with physical barriers, signs, tape or floor markers to facilitate social distancing.
• Requiring everyone entering the premises to wear masks or a face covering at all times, with limited exceptions.
• Requiring the removal of reusable items such as magazines, toys, and samples.
• Complying with additional requirements for certain services.

“Proper disinfection and cleaning practices are already part of the training our licensees receive, and the regulations the Division enforces” said Acting Director Paul R. Rodríguez. “By expanding these safety protocols to include additional infection control measures, we seek to protect the safety of consumers, providers, and staff as the State continues its path on the road to recovery.”

Shop owners and licensed providers of personal health services must also employ enhanced cleaning, disinfection, and other health and safety practices, and assist with contact-tracing efforts.

The Division’s Administrative Order includes cosmetology shops, barber shops, beauty salons, hair braiding shops, nail salons, and massage establishments.

Electrology services, which are overseen by the Electrologists Advisory Committee of the State Board of Medical Examiners, must follow the safety procedures applicable to all healthcare providers established by the Division’s May 18 Administrative Order 2020-07, as well as applicable statutes and regulations.

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The mission of the Division of Consumer Affairs, within the Department of Law and Public Safety, is to protect the public from fraud, deceit, misrepresentation and professional misconduct in the sale of goods and services in New Jersey through education, advocacy, regulation and enforcement. The Division pursues its mission through its 51 professional and occupational boards that oversee 720,000 licensees in the state, its Regulated Business section that oversees 60,000 NJ registered businesses, as well as through its Office of Consumer Protection, Bureau of Securities, Charities Registration section, Office of Weights and Measures, and Legalized Games of Chance section.

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