Homeless crime surge pushes Texas salon owners to consider closing shop: 'This is plaguing our entire city'
Laura North and Erin Mutschler, co-owners of Headspace Salon, share their harrowing experience after a man tried to rush their shop entrance and a nearby homeless camp wreaked havoc on the location.
Texas salon owners Laura North and Erin Mutschler said the crime crisis in Austin is making them consider closing shop. But, unsure of where to turn if they lose their livelihood, they continue to weigh their next steps.
"[Crime] is plaguing our entire city," Mutschler told Ashley Strohmier Monday on "Fox & Friends First."
Moving anywhere within the city would be expensive for the duo, who said relocating wouldn't be "cost-effective" for their small business.
Still, North said facing four years of disturbances – which she noted have escalated within the last six months – continues to wreak havoc on the property and drive away customers.
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A member of the Austin, Texas police department stands watch during the Gold Cup semifinal match between the United States and Qatar.. ((Photo by Nick Tre. Smith/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images))
"It comes and goes in waves. Sometimes it gets cleaned up, and it gets a little better, but I would say definitely the last six months are the worst that we've seen," she said.
One incident caught on camera showed a man charging the storefront with a pole as the shop owners waited for police to arrive.
"This was the third incident we'd had just that week," North said. "We'd started to see this man acting kind of erratically in our parking lot. People were starting to get frightened, so we asked him to leave politely. When we asked him to do that, he actually charged Erin, and she ran inside and began to call the police, and it just escalated from there."
A trespasser creates a disturbance outside the Headspace Salon in Austin, Texas. (Fox & Friends First)
"You kind of feel helpless knowing that the police are going to take so long to arrive," she later added.
Austin Police said in a statement that a criminal trespass notice had been issued for the incident, adding that the investigation was still ongoing.
"I couldn't put a number on the amount of times we've had to call them in just the last year," North told Strohmier. "It usually takes them anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour to arrive when we make multiple phone calls for threatening incidents like this."
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Laura North and Erin Mutschler said the crime crisis in Austin has wreaked havoc on their small business, especially within the last six months.
North also claimed the duo's calls to city officials were fruitless.
"Until we went to the media to show our experience and share what we're really going through, they haven't been really responsive."
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