Drybar at 222 E. 34th St. (Google Maps)
Dec. 19, 2018 By Meghan Sackman
A Manhattan hair salon has come under fire after one of its patrons, an Astoria woman, received a receipt from an employee with a racist slur written on it.
The patron, Briana Tae, went to a Murray Hill Drybar at around 6 p.m. on Monday to get her hair done for her nursing school ceremony the following day, according to her Facebook post.
Tae, identified by reports as an Astoria resident, took a look at the receipt on the table and was horrified by what she read.
“I look over and see this,” she wrote. “Client: Briana, Description: Chinky eyes.”
Tae, who wrote that she had never been so appalled in her life, said she confronted the front desk about the receipt, which only escalated the situation.
The front desk staffer apparently “could not understand why it was an issue and why it was highly inappropriate to write such a description,” Tae wrote.
The staffer allegedly even told Tae that she has “chinky” eyes, too, in an attempt to make her feel better.
The post has been viewed by hundreds and has more than 400 reactions and comments combined, with some now taking to warning others of the racist incident and effectively boycott the 34th Street business.
Tae could not be reached by press time, but noted in her post that she is disgusted by her experience, which was supposed to lead up to a day that would celebrate all her accomplishments while in nursing school.
“All of my hard work and successes simply came down to a girl with ‘chinky eyes,’” she wrote, later adding, “Since when is it okay to describe your paying customers as something so racist?”
DryBar referred the Queens Post’s questions to their corporate offices, which did not respond within press time, but told CBS that the employee responsible for writing the slur no longer works there.
“It’s very serious to us,” Drybar said to the news station.
