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Business taking up residence at site of protests pledges to cut 'everybody's hair' - Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette

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CHAMPAIGN — A small amount of graffiti still remains on the street in front of the brick building at the corner of Washington and Hickory in downtown Champaign, remnants of last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests at the business that formerly occupied the space, Rogue Barber Co.

Al Allison will make sure to clean the graffiti off in the next few weeks as he gets ready for opening day of a new kind of hair parlor, not only for the space, but also for Champaign.

“There’s stuff I have to power-spray off that you don’t want a kid to read,” he said.

The idea for Next Level Hair Parlor came to Allison as he was driving down Neil Street from one of his businesses to another. The owner of CBPB Popcorn Shop and several other establishments had thought about opening a barbershop for years, but had never found the right place and time.

As he drove through the intersection and looked over, it hit him.

“I said, ‘Wait a second. Duh,’” said Allison, who is Black. “I keep a pretty low profile with businesses. I just do what I do with my businesses and I disappear. This is something I don’t normally do with, ‘Oh, it’s time for this.’ But in this situation, it’s really time for it.”

The former site of Rogue Barber Co. was the place to unleash his plan.

He wouldn’t just open a barbershop, he decided. He’d open a hair parlor, where everyone is welcome. He’d hire two stylists to primarily cut women’s hair and four barbers to cut men’s hair.

And they would make it a point to serve customers of all kinds.

“When I do look for a barber, I look for, ‘Can you cut everybody’s hair?’” Allison said. “Because I don’t want anybody to walk through that door and feel like they’re not welcome. I want them to feel like, when you come in here, we can service you. And not on a level that just passes. We want service as good as anybody else.”

Last summer, Rogue Barbershop was the site of intense protests after announcing on Facebook that it was a “private membership traditional barbershop (not unisex) not open to the general public,” and that prospective members were to fill out an application that, customers alleged, agreed that they did not sympathize with violent extremist groups” that included antifa or Black Lives Matter.

The way Allison understands it, the problems began when a woman was denied service at the shop before the membership application was exposed.

“It was a nightmare story all the way around,” Allison said. Owner Michael Long “did not represent anything that I feel Champaign is or was about. … You just can’t pick and choose in the service industry who your customers are. You provide a service. I think that’s probably what he just did not understand.”

The new shop is physically smaller than Rogue, but it offers plenty of space for a front desk, four chairs for barbers and two private stations for stylists, which Allison created by putting up walls.

Stylist Krissy Ostrander called it a “unique business vision,” that bucks some unsavory trends of traditional barbershops and hair salons.

“It should be, ‘Every person is valued,’” Ostrander said. “There should be no reason to turn someone away in this profession. … When it comes down to being valued for your beliefs, your appearance, how you’re trying to envision yourself, I have no issues with that.”

Allison, who doesn’t cut hair and plans to be mostly hands-off once business begins, said he’s still looking for two barbers. In addition to their skills, they must fit some simple criteria.

“When you go to barber school or beauty school, they teach you everything,” he said. “It’s where you go when you get out. You try to find somebody that, even if they don’t know how to do both, they’re willing to learn how to do both. Because it’s not hard. Hair is hair. So with Next Level, that’s what we’re looking for — barbers who can do both.”

Allison is putting the finishing touches on the shop, and this week, he’ll have a sign put up on the window that describes the store’s new identity.

“It’ll say, ‘All hair textures,’” he said. “Because my hair is not the same as yours, is not the same as (Ostrander’s). … We don’t want someone running around Champaign for a White barbershop or a Black barbershop.

“At the end of the day, just come here. We got you.”

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