A nail salon in Tennessee is now facing severe criticism and backlash after posting a sign on its door saying that heavier customers will be charged more for pedicures.
The sign, posted on Facebook by Deshania Ferguson, reads, “Sorry, but if you are overweight, pedicures will be $45 due to service fees for pedicurists. Thank you!” Ferguson, a resident of Memphis, captioned the photo, “So rude.” It has since been shared over 500 times and has earned the ire of social media users, New York Daily News reports.
Tennessee is ninth among the US states with the most number of overweight people.
Ferguson says Rose Nails, where she visited, normally charges up to $30 for a pedicure. The salon in question did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but finally told WREG that they had never put up such a sign.
The salon owner, Son Nguyen, denied the allegations, even with photographic evidence showing the sign next to other posters still present at his establishment. He said that the photo “could be anywhere” except his salon.
Nguyen did, however, say that he had rejected serving larger customers before because he claims to have lost over $2,000 after two salon chairs were broken. He added that he has had issues because it was “difficult for technicians to give them pedicures.”
Ferguson is incredulous at Rose Salon’s denial.
They took the sign down and denied ever having it up…pictures are worth a thousand words,
she said in a follow-up Facebook post on Friday. The sign is now nowhere to be seen in the salon.
Other salons have come under fire in recent years for similar reasons, such as putting weight limits on their chairs. A salon in Gaffney, for example, came under fire in 2016 when it asked customers over 250 lbs. not to sit on their spa chairs “for their own safety.”
