Erica Kious, the owner of the San Francisco salon where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she was “set up” and filmed getting her hair done, furthered the Speaker’s argument by running to Tucker Carlson’s FOX News program to tell her story on Wednesday night.
Pelosi, earlier on Wednesday, said she was “set up” by the salon which filmed her being serviced inside and released footage to FOX News.
The SF Chronicle reports: “Pelosi said she took responsibility for falling for the ‘setup’ to have her hair done inside the salon Monday. But the San Francisco Democrat said that if anyone owes an apology, it’s the salon. ‘I think that this salon owes me an apology, for setting me up,’ she said at an event about school reopenings in San Francisco’s Noe Valley. Pelosi’s visit to the salon set off a firestorm when Fox News posted security footage of it Tuesday. Her visit happened one day before salons in the city were allowed to open for business, but only outdoors.”
Kious did not do Pelosi’s hair. Jonathan DeNardo, the San Francisco cosmetologist who did service Pelosi, released a statement via a lawyer on Wednesday, saying that he received advance approval for the appointment from Kious.
Added DeNardo: “Ms. Kious took special interest in the appointment during this telephone call, wherein she made several vitriolic and incendiary comments about Speaker Pelosi and her purported responsibility for temporarily suspending operations of Ms. Kious’ business, despite such orders actually being put into place not by Speaker Pelosi, but by Governor Gavin Newsom and San Francisco Mayor London Breed.”
DeNardo, through his lawyer, also said that he has evidence that Kious has been operating illegally for months: “This office is in possession of photographs, videos and witness information that Ms. Kious, contrary to her prior statements to the press, has actually been operating her business during the stay-at-home orders and similar executive orders limiting in-store operations since as far back as April 2020. Ms. Kious is seen on photographs and video footage styling various clients’ hair, ignoring social distancing guidelines, and not wearing protective equipment (masks), as recently as a few days prior to Speaker Pelosi’s arrival at eSalon on August 31, 2020. What’s more, Ms. Kious has also been actively encouraging and almost forcing stylists who operate at eSalon to violate such orders for her own financial benefit in the form of receiving lease payments.”
