Rob's blog

Ah, this story. West Jordan was selected as the second location to host a "Bikini Cuts" hair salon where stylists cut hair wearing bikinis and wrap-arounds. Community members were outraged that such a thing could be allowed to happen in our quiet community where news of this kind does not often get made. I studied the issue along with the other city council members and found that as it was not a sexually-oriented business per se, there was nothing that could be done to prevent them from opening their business in the heart of our city (7800 S Redwood Road just in case you didn't know). The surest way to keep them in business was to provide free publicity by picketing or raising a racket - which is exactly what they wanted. My attempt in this story was to get citizens to vote with their feet and their pocket books by not patronizing the business if they felt it did not conform with our community values. The store is still there today and I don't know how profitable it is for the owner, but I feel that by toning down the response, it has not become the lightning rod that it could have been that could have led to other stores opening in our city. To date, 3 years later,this is still the only one, so maybe this isn't such a great market for this kind of service after all? You make the call.

06-24-04 Tribune - West Jordan Plots against Bikini Cuts.pdf