Primo's Barbershop In Vacaville Refuses To Shut Down Under Latest Closures
VACAVILLE (CBS13) — Primo's Barbershop in Vacaville is not letting the state's new round of closures trim back their hours one bit.
"I think the better question is why decide to close down yet again? We know the closure hurt our economy," Juan Desmarais, owner of Primo's Barbershop, said.
This isn't new territory for Primo's. The shop defied the previous cut back on businesses being open.
"I'm just not going to put my barbers, you know, who are sole providers for their young families, in the category that we are not essential," Desmarais said. "That we are not able to provide for our families."
Desmarais told CBS13 he received about $12,000 in donations to pay potential fines during the first closure. But when they reopened, instead of putting that money toward his business, he's donating the money to different charitable organizations.
"Once the state opened back up and we got past that initial closure, we were under the assumption that we were fine," Desmarais said. "So, we didn't want anyone to feel like we were trying to profit from all of their support."
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Desmarais donated $6,497 to The Charge On Foundation. The foundation is in honor of fallen Vallejo officer James Capoot, who was an avid girls' basketball coach. It makes $497 donations to athletes and other youth sports organizations. Capoot's badge number was 497.
"He reached out to my daughter. He wanted to give us half of it and I was absolutely shocked! That's the biggest donation we've ever had from a single donor ever," Jennifer Capoot, Founder of The Charge On Foundation, said. "And of course, we pumped that money out to the youth."
The money was also spread to Noah Coughlan who from Vacaville and does transcontinental runs to raise awareness for rare diseases with his organization Run 4 Rare.
"It's a testament to the goodwill of Juan and the goodwill of Vacaville in general that he would do," Coughlan said.
The barbershop owner says it's an awesome feeling helping out his community. His shop wanted to bless the community just like they felt with the donations.
"I couldn't be prouder to give away the money that people gave to me. I'll continue to and if we get shut down, I'll have to figure out a way to deal with that financially and I will," he said.
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Solano County sent CBS13 a statement regarding what kind of enforcement will be implemented against the shop for not complying with the latest closure.
It reads, "The ordinance issued by the state indicates the local jurisdiction is the enforcement agency, which in this instance is the City of Vacaville Police Department. The State may also step in and deploy a strike team to administratively pull licenses, etc. to halt operations."