When Khalilah Few opened her salon, Inventive Crowns Collective, in 2023, she did not suppose her enterprise savvy would put her at odds with the native authorities. However two years later, she now finds herself in a authorized battle with Clayton County, Georgia.
After outgrowing her unique studio house, Few signed a two-year lease for a brand new salon housed in an outdated barbershop in Jonesboro, a metropolis in Clayton County, in March. She invested over $30,000 into the property and utilized for a Conditional Use Allow (CUP) in April to open her salon. Regardless of assembly the authorized necessities for a allow, the Clayton County Zoning Advisory Board and the Board of Commissioners denied Few’s utility in July.
As an alternative of the legislation, county officers cited a “saturation” of comparable companies in a 5-mile radius, arguing the salon wouldn’t “develop Clayton County neatly.” Commissioner DeMont Davis, whose fourth district contains the brand new location of the salon, even famous that Few’s plan “does align” with the county’s financial improvement plan however nonetheless voted towards it, saying Few’s enterprise was “simply within the unsuitable space.”
Few has filed a lawsuit towards Clayton County, alleging violations of the Due Course of and Equal Safety clauses of the Georgia Structure. Jessica Bigbie, an legal professional on the Institute for Justice (I.J.), which is representing Few, tells Motive that “nothing within the ordinance or the legislation says something about good development being a foundation to disclaim a allow.”
All through the method, Few says county employees gave “imprecise” responses when requested about necessities and causes for denial. She tells Motive the primary time she heard about “oversaturation” was when she attended her assembly with the zoning advisory board. “What’s irritating and infuriating about this course of is I requested questions, I immediately requested, ‘What are some causes that this utility will be denied?'” She says, she “needed to be ready.”
Clayton County officers didn’t reply to Motive‘s request for remark.
Few’s hurdles will be traced again to 2024, when Clayton County amended its municipal code and designated District 4, the place the proposed salon is positioned, as a Basic Enterprise Zoning District with a Enterprise Hall Overlay District. This overlay permits some companies to open and not using a CUP whereas requiring one for others. Private service institutions, comparable to dry cleaners or watch restore outlets, usually don’t require a CUP, whereas hair salons do.
The county’s CUP standards for District 4 seem arbitrary, as they deal with related companies inconsistently. Day cares and dance/music colleges are permitted, however gyms and locations of worship are conditional. Counterintuitively, even doubtlessly hazardous corporations, comparable to analysis labs, are permitted.
To get a CUP, candidates should meet with the Technical Overview Committee, group residents, and the Zoning Advisory Group, then attend a last listening to earlier than the County Board of Commissioners. The board considers the appliance’s correct submitting, the Zoning Advisory Group’s suggestion, compliance with allow circumstances, and consistency with the ordinance’s goal and intent. In addition they weigh the advantages towards potential hurt to properties or the county and may impose affordable circumstances to make sure public well being, security, and welfare.
Few’s salon met the allow circumstances, and she or he supplied county employees and the commissioners with not solely her utility however a presentation detailing her alignment with the county’s 2039 complete improvement plan in addition to Davis’ said financial priorities. She additionally had “over 50 letters of help,” but none of that mattered. “I believe you’ve gotten a wonderful enterprise,” mentioned Davis. “You might have a wonderful character, and I really like what you carry, and also you really damage my coronary heart proper now, however we have got to disclaim,” he added.
“The Board of Commissioners concedes that the salon suits the plan; it is a good enterprise, she’s doing the best factor, she is simply not doing it the place they need her to do it,” says Bigbie. “The federal government should not be stopping legit companies from opening to cease them from competing with others.”
Clayton County officers have denied a number of different potential salon house owners a CUP for the reason that passage of the 2024 ordinance. Lea Bakam, who owned LeNa Braiding, tells Motive she was denied a CUP on June 17 after spending “greater than $35,000” fixing up a salon in Clayton County. Like Few, Bakam offered the board of commissioners along with her marketing strategy and letters of help. But, in denying the allow, Davis once more famous that the world was “extraordinarily saturated with salons.”
The Georgia Supreme Court docket has already dominated, in Raffesnber v. Jackson (2023), that it’s a violation of due course of rights when governments limit the pursuit of “lawful occupation of their selecting free from unreasonable authorities interference.” I.J. prevailed in an identical case in Fulton County, Georgia—Diagne v. Metropolis of South Fulton (2024)—wherein the Fulton County Superior Court docket struck down the city’s try to dam Awa Diagne from opening a salon. The court docket discovered that the county’s denial of a allow ran “opposite to Georgia’s lengthy historical past of constitutional jurisprudence.”
Few has filed for an interlocutory injunction to proceed working whereas her court docket case is pending. Clayton County should reply to her lawsuit by September 18.
