ANDERSON COUNTY, SC (FOX Carolina) On Monday South Carolina Governor McMaster said restrictions would be lifted on close-contact services like barbershops, nail salons and tattoo parlors starting May 18.
The announcement comes nearly six weeks after the governor issued an executive order to temporarily suspend those operations, as a precaution while the state worked to combat the coronavirus.
Tuesday, the owner of an Anderson barbershop filed a lawsuit against Gov. McMaster, challenging the action to shut down businesses that are considered close-contact.
Robert “Tony” McCurry, 62, owns McCurry’s Barber Shop on Whitehall Road in Anderson. In the lawsuit, the businessman says he doesn’t feel it’s fair to be deemed ‘non-essential.’
While revenue has halted, the lawsuit says McCurry and other business owners have still had to pay expenses.
“Keeping lights, water, sewer, and other expenses has been tough without customers,” McCurry said. “Both for the business, and for our own homes.”
McCurry is being represented by attorney Robert Merting from the Greenville area.
“My client was denied his rights to his livelihood, property, and labor. He is suffering under the direct act of the Governor, which was based on a strained interpretation of state law. It is unconstitutional,” said Merting. “We are seeking to get my client and all other barbers and cosmetologists back to work, and to prevent further abuses of this kind in the future.”
Merting says the lawsuit does not seek any monetary damages, but urges Gov. McMaster to “obey state law and the constitution, and to prevent further harm to South Carolinians from executive orders that deprive them of the use of their property and the ability to earn a living.”
FOX Carolina has reached out to the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office concerning the lawsuit, to which they were unable to comment. The Governor’s Office has yet respond.
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