‘The Wrong Area’: Georgia County Blocks Black Hair Salon Because She Would Compete with Other Businesses. Now, She’s Suing
Khalilah Few, a Black entrepreneur who has run a natural hair business, braiding and styling hair for 20 years, poured her life savings into renovating a new salon in Jonesboro, Georgia, that would allow her to expand her business. But a clash with Clayton County bureaucrats over a zoning permit has put a screeching halt to her plans and led her to fight back against what her attorneys call unlawful economic protectionism. Hairstylist Khalilah Few stands in front of her newly renovated salon in Jonesboro, Georgia, in August, 2025. (Photo: Institute for Justice) Few opened her salon, Creative Crowns Collective, in McDonough in 2023, and soon outgrew the space. In March, she signed a two-year lease for a new salon at the site of a former barbershop in Jonesboro, located 25 miles to the northwest, just off a highway exit in south metro Atlanta, where she hoped to attract more customers. The bigger space would also allow her to hire two new stylists. She spent more than $30,000 in renovations and rent, including leasing a corner of another nearby salon so she could keep working while preparing to open, according to her lawsuit, filed in Clayton County Superior Court on Aug. 14 (and obtained by Atlanta Black Star). ‘Not a 5-Star Restaurant’: McDonald’s Employees Dragged After Wearing Pajamas on the Job In a Viral Video But in May, when Few applied for a conditional use permit (CUP) required by the county for certain types of businesses in the city's business district, her “red tape nightmare” began, the complaint says. The county required her to attend four hearings over two months in pursuit of the permit, including technical and zoning reviews, a community information meeting, and a final hearing with the Clayton County Board of Commissioners. Her business plans were strongly supported by the community and met all technical and land use requirements, but hit a roadblock with the Zoning Advisory Group, which voted to deny her permit, reasoning that her salon did not align with the county’s 2039 Comprehensive Plan, which envisions a mixed-use industrial commercial corridor relying on “smart growth” principles. The Main Street Jonesboro area already had three similar businesses — a barber shop and two hair salons — within a 5-mile radius, the zoning group reported, and thus Few’s natural hair salon did not fit due to “saturation.” Few did their best to present her business plan and its community-oriented mission (including hosting programs for underserved youth) at a final hearing before Clayton County commissioners on July 15, distributing 53 letters of support from clients and other members of the public. But the commissioners also denied her permit. Following her presentation, the lawsuit says, Commissioner DeMont Davis told Few, “I want to say thank you. You did a fabulous job. And you’re right, it does align . Unfortunately, to what we are going, this is just in the wrong area. And we’ve got to begin to grow Clayton County smartly. I think you have a fabulous business. You have a fabulous personality and I love what you bring. And you actually hurt my heart right now, but we have got to deny .” Her attorneys now argue that the “oversaturation” justification for denying her permit is not actually in the county’s 2039 economic development plan, which primarily focuses on the need to revitalize the area around the salon. And more crucially, they say, that basis for denial is unconstitutional, because it violates business owners’ right to practice a lawful occupation without unreasonable government interference. The Georgia Constitution only spells out a few exceptions allowing local governments to bar business uses and requires that they threaten the health, safety, or welfare of a community. Those typically include such businesses as liquor stores, pawn shops and payday lenders, which community leaders often agree negatively impact people’s physical and economic health if overconcentrated in one geographic area. State law does not give Clayton County or any local government the right to arbitrarily ban hair salons or other businesses due to perceived oversaturation, argues Jessica Bigbie, one of the attorneys from the Institute for Justice, a national public interest law firm that has taken on Few’s case pro bono. “It’s not the government's job or right to pick who is a winner and a loser in business,” Bigbie told Atlanta Black Star. “That right belongs to customers. Customers should get to decide what businesses are successful, which businesses thrive in the community. And it’s not up to the government to make that distinction. Just because a business is there first doesn't mean that that the government should be able to step in and protect those businesses.” Institute for Justice lawyers won a similar, precedent-setting zoning law case in Georgia last year when they represented Black hairstylist Awa Diagne in her lawsuit against the city of South Fulton, which denied her a special use permit to open a hair braiding salon based on an expressed need for “balanced economic development” and to avoid “saturation.” In his Dec. 16, 2024, order reversing their denial, Fulton County Superior Judge Robert C.I. McBurney found that the county “abused its discretion” when it denied Diagne the permit, noting that the only evidence offered by the county to justify their denial was a complaint by a local hair salon owner who feared direct competition, “seasoned only with protectionist arguments.” Few’s legal complaint also claims that Clayton County is violating state law guaranteeing due process and equal protection by singling out her type of business for less favorable treatment.Bigbie pointed out that Clayton County allows pet grooming facilities to open up without a conditional use permit, but not salons or barber shops. The county also makes a distinction between other “personal service businesses” such as dry cleaners, watch repair shops and tailors, which do not need a CUP, and fitness centers and movie theaters, which do. “It doesn’t make logical sense why there is a distinction between those things,” she said. “It’s irrational.” In recent court filings, attorneys representing Few and her business have traded legal arguments with Clayton County over whether she even has a right to sue the county, since she did not bring up her constitutional claims at the July hearing before the county commissioners. The plaintiffs argue that a new state law expressly grants people the right to appeal an initial zoning board denial, and does not require regular citizens who are not lawyers to make such prescient legal arguments at the time they apply for a permit. The county disagrees and made that issue a central part of its motion to dismiss the lawsuit at a hearing before Chief Judge Robert L. Mack in Clayton Superior Court on Nov. 3. Meanwhile, Few, a single mother, is contending with more pressing problems. While her salon remains closed, she’s paying double rent every month as she continues to work out of chairs rented at two other salons. Unable to employ other stylists, she’s earning less money every month and struggling to support herself and her teenage son, court documents say. She has also lost some clients. Her legal team asked the judge to grant a temporary injunction to allow Few to operate her new salon while the litigation is ongoing, arguing that she and her business will suffer irreparable harm if she continues operating at a loss. “It has been tough on her, trying to make ends meet and anxiously awaiting” the legal outcome that will determine “if she can pursue her dream of a thriving business,” said Bigbie. “And as wonderful as Khalilah is, this case is really about all Georgians and regular folks trying to pursue their American dream," while "fighting against irrational zoning and other barriers to entrepreneurship.”
