Aug. 7 update: Lawyer questions police response to melee at nail salon
There were some tense moments at a nail salon in B.C.'s Fraser Valley over the weekend after a customer dispute erupted into violence.
Cellphone video recorded in the middle of Saturday’s altercation shows 26-year-old Ashley Deshaies arguing with a group of employees at HD Nails who had already allegedly locked her inside the business for refusing to pay for a manicure and pedicure.
"Let me out of your f---ing shop. Do not f---ing touch me," Deshaies says at one point.
During another exchange, she offers to pay for half of the $76 bill, but no more unless employees fix what she argues are problems with her nails.
"They're all different lengths … you guys didn't even finish my toes," she says. "It looks horrible."
"You liar!" a staff member yells back.
Eventually all five salon workers get involved as Deshaies tries to exit the store. Both the customer and the salon's owner, Anna Dang, said they came away from the confrontation with scratches and bruises.
"She hit my face," Dang told CTV News Monday.
The salon owner said she's not sure whether they had the right to lock Deshaies inside, but that they did it because "I don't want (to give) my service for free."
While a worker was recording the melee from inside the store, Deshaies' father, Bernard Besier, was recording from the street. In Besier's video, he and a family friend can be heard calling 911 for help.
Chilliwack RCMP eventually arrived at the salon, and staff said the customer was ordered to pay $23 of her bill.
According to Deshaies' family, the officer who responded to the call didn't take her statement, and threatened to arrest her for fraud if she didn't pay HD Nail.
"That was handled very unprofessionally, in my opinion," Besier said. "He should have basically taken the statements from both sides and said, 'If you want your money for the service provided, take her to civil court.'"
The family also believes what happened to Deshaies in the salon amounts to forcible confinement, and wants employees investigated.
The Chilliwack RCMP detachment did not want to comment on the story Monday, but said it would be providing an update later in the week.
With files from CTV Vancouver's Ben Miljure
