The owner of the San Francisco salon that gave House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a blowout despite the coronavirus pandemic’s restrictions is pushing back on claims that the salon staged a setup to make her look bad.
“She had called a stylist in, or her assistant did, and made the appointment, so the appointment was already booked, so there’s no way I could’ve set that up,” Erica Kious, owner of eSalon, told Fox News host Tucker Carlson. “And I’ve had a camera system in there for five years. I mean, I didn’t go in there and turn cameras on as soon as she walked in and set her up. So, that is absolutely false.”
Pelosi said she was set up after footage of her was reported by media outlets showing her without a mask on and getting her hair done at the salon.
Kious said the California Democrat has been a client of the salon located in the city’s upscale Pacific Heights neighborhood, so her accusations of her business were “hurtful.”
“To be honest, it was more hurtful,” Kious said. “She’s been coming in for quite a while, and just to see her come in, and especially not wearing the mask, that’s what really got to me, but this isn’t even political. I mean, she’s been coming in there. It’s the fact that she actually came in and didn’t have a mask on, and I just thought about my staff and people not being able to work and make money and provide for their families, and if she is in there comfortably without a mask and feeling safe, then why are we shut down? Why am I not able to have clients come in?”
Kious disputed that the lockdowns are necessary to the extent they’ve been placed in the San Francisco area, adding that her business has taken a huge financial hit.
“For the past six months, I mean, we are pretty much done,” she said. “I mean, we’ve lost at least 60% of our clients. I’ve lost the majority of my staff, so six months is a long time to be closed down.”
Since the reports of Pelosi’s clandestine hair appointment came out, Kious said she’s been the target of threats, bad reviews, and hate texts. The response is enough to prompt her to leave the area she’s been in for over a decade, she said.
“I’ve been in that community for 12 years. Since this happened, I have received nothing but hate text messages, death threats, they’re going to burn my hair salon down,” Kious said. “My Yelp page is just unbelievable with bad reviews. It’s just sad that my community is pulling this, when they are saying that I threw her under the bus when I didn’t. So that’s hurtful, but yeah, I think I’m pretty much done now.”
