A man in Wisconsin called 911 after he complained of a bad haircut at a Madison, Wis. salon, resulting in the arrest of the hair stylist.
Madison police spokesman Joel DeSpain said the 22-year-old man visited Ruby’s Salon barber shop to get a shave on the sides and an inch off the top, the Washington State Journal reports.
46-year-old Khaled A. Shabani gave the cut. According to the New York Daily News, he owns the barber shop.
Shabani says that the man was very fidgety and kept moving his head. The Wisconsin State Journal reports that rather than telling the man to stay still, the stylist twisted the customer’s ear when he began to move around. Then he snipped off the tip.
To top the bad hair experience off, Shabani ran the clippers on the closest setting down the center of the man’s head. Despain remarked that the cut looked “a bit like Larry from ‘The Three Stooges’.”
“While it is not a crime to give someone a bad haircut,” the spokesman confirmed, “you will get arrested for intentionally snipping their ear with a scissors.”
Shamani was charged with on tentative charge of mayhem and disorderly conduct while armed. He maintains that it was an accident.
The customer appears to have suffered no major damage. He did, however, go to another hair stylist to get his entire head shaved before returning home for Christmas.
According to barber shop start up website StartABarbers, stylists should undergo a health and safety risk assessment and abide by a health and safety policy. Unsanitary incidents or injuries for stylists or clients should be recorded in an ‘accident book’ and reported to the authorities if necessary.
The website reports that small barber shops can be seriously impacted by injury claims. The ear-snipping incident isn’t likely to help Ruby’s Salon, which already boasted a 2-star rating out of 16 reviews on Yelp.
One user who has never visited the shop took the liberty of posting a bad review to keep customers away:
While I personally have NEVER been to this salon, I would avoid at ALL costs… Stylist was arrested, who claims it was an accident… I have been accidentally snipped by a pair of scissors when my stylist was trimming around my ear. But the shaving of the strip of hair down the middle of the customer’s head? Not even close! I don’t know who owns this salon, but perhaps they had best do better background checks on their stylists! Or give them time off to go home and get their meds if they forgot them that day!
