Nail Salon

At first glance, the strip mall in Long Beach appears to be its own Little Southeast Asia, with Cambodian and Vietnamese grocery stores, sandwich shops and other businesses that cater to a largely immigrant clientele. But nestled alongside Dr. Dien Van Pham's Medical Clinic and the Mekong Pharmacy is a multiculturalist's dream. Step inside Mini's Hair and Nail salon and you enter a world that belies the notion that people from radically different backgrounds and races cannot get along.

The City Council has approved an ordinance that triples parking requirements for new fingernail salons citywide, except in planned communities with their own standards. The rule means new nail salons will have to provide one parking space for every 80 square feet of salon area, up from one space per 240 square feet, which is the requirement for beauty salons. The city has had a moratorium on new personal service businesses with five or more workstations since April 25.

The City Council will examine the merits of a plan to make new fingernail salons provide nearly three times as much parking as existing ones, even though the Planning Commission voted the ordinance down. Parking problems at a nail salon in Corona del Mar prompted then-City Councilman Phil Sansone to request the change last year.

In hopes of easing some traffic problems, the Planning Commission today will consider increasing parking requirements for new fingernail salons. Under a revised ordinance, new nail salons would be required to provide one parking space for every 80 square feet of salon area--three times as many parking spaces as have been required in the past. The city has had a moratorium on new personal service businesses that have five or more work stations since last April 25.

It starts with a tiny green spot--like a dot of ink under the fingernail--but soon blackens and spreads. As the infection swells, the nail is pushed up and off its bed. The intense pain ends only with surgical removal of the nail. "It's very gross, very ugly, very dangerous," says Shirley Cranford, a state investigator who sees the not-so-beautiful side of California's massive nail care industry.

So you started getting those long acrylic nails glued on at the local salon a few years ago--the kind that can skewer olives from a deep martini glass, the ones that keep you in slip-on shoes because you can't tie bows any more. Then a recession hits. What do you do? Eschew your nails? Never! Because beauty is recession-proof, industry experts contend, one of those low-cost luxuries that keep us happy when we can't afford the big-ticket items we really want.

Nail salons looking for a toehold in South Pasadena may be out of luck soon. Councilman Amedee Richards suggested at last week's council meeting that the city investigate the possibility of limiting the number of certain types of commercial enterprises in South Pasadena. Richards said he would like to see a "balancing of the nature of the businesses we have here."

A Panorama City machinist who pleaded guilty to setting a string of fires at San Fernando Valley beauty and nail salons was sentenced Friday to 11 years in state prison. Rickey Jiminez, 33, "has engaged in a pattern of violent conduct and is a danger to society," Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Alan B. Haber said at the sentencing.