04/27/2020 – Texas
On April 21st, KLTV (ABC News 7) reported, “There have been hundreds of complaints made against cosmetologists, barbers, and massage therapists since the stay-at-home order was made in Texas.
According to the Department of Licensing and Regulation, there were 493 complaints about cosmetologists, barbers and massage therapists. This means, they are working when they aren’t supposed to.”
The Trophy Club Journal (TCJ) has learned that this report from KLTV is false.
The day following this article, TCJ filed an Open Records Request (ORR) with Texas Department of Licensing & Regulation (TDLR) requesting a list of all complaints filed against Barbershops & Cosmetologists submitted between March 20, 2020 to April 20, 2020 as related to businesses operating in violation of COVID restrictions.
TDLR was very cooperative and responded on April 24th with the following list.
In fact, there were only 10 COVID-19 complaints filed in the previous 30 days for the entire State of Texas. All but one was filed anonymously.
Admittedly, TCJ failed to include massage therapists in our request as the character and timing of the article was related to barbers & cosmetologists. However, we find it unlikely that the remaining 482 complaints, as stipulated in the article from KTLV were all associated with massage therapists.
How is it possible that a multi-million-dollar news agency with dozens of reporters, writers, editors etc. could be so inaccurate? Was this an intentional effort to mislead the public? Does ABC News 7 have an agenda? Or was this just incompetence?
We will leave it up to our readers to decide.
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The Trophy Club Journal (TrophyClubJournal.com) is the definitive news source for Trophy Club, TX.
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