Local

‘It’s hard to understand why it takes 4 months:’ Jacksonville salon owner in limbo after damage

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — When heading to the ‘Curl Up & Dye’ salon in the Mandarin neighborhood of Jacksonville, you’ll be greeted by a plywood wall.

“We had several people drive up and think we weren’t here,” Roxanne Harris said. “Unfortunately, there were a few people who fell through the cracks with that.”

Harris co-owns the salon with her sister. She’s been in the industry for more than three decades.

Back in early August, a customer plowed into the front of her salon. A portion of the brick foundation collapsed, damaging the structure and the salon’s front door.

“We were out of business for the first month,” Harris said. She temporarily worked out of another business’s salon. Three months ago, Harris and her staff were allowed back inside, but the exterior remains the same.

“We’ve been walking into a plywood wall since then,” Harris said. “No answers from the city, except we’re in a holding review status at this point.”

Harris is awaiting permits to be approved by the City of Jacksonville so repairs can get underway.

Action News Jax reporter, Meghan Moriarty, reached out to the city asking for the status of Harris’ permit and what the normal timeframe is to process these types of requests.

A city spokesperson sent us this statement last week:

“We understand how important each permit is to the project owner and to give the same priority to all our customers, reviewing each building permit submission in the order we receive in our permitting system. Currently, due to volume (receiving about 1,000 building permit submissions a week), commercial plan reviews take about 30 business days to be routed through all the reviews necessary for staff to issue the permit. This specific permit is pending review by the Fire Marshal and Building Inspection Division staff. It should be complete in about 10 business days.”

Action News Jax checked back in with the city on Wednesday to ask about adequate staffing and the proper timeframe for permits. Moriarty was told the permits for this business should be complete in a few days.

Harris believes it still shouldn’t have taken this long.

“Everything through the city is waiting on permits. It’s been 4 months now and it’s just hard to understand why it takes 4 months to get your business back to where it was,” Harris said.

Action News Jax is currently waiting to hear back about any staffing issues and the typical timeframe for permit approval.

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