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Video Of Nail Salon Worker Throwing Acetone And Beating Black Women With Brooms Sparks Protest

The fight allegedly broke out because one customer refused to pay for a botched eyebrow wax.

Protesters have gathered outside of a Brooklyn nail salon Monday after a viral video showed employees of the salon beating Black women with broomsticks and hurling acetone on them over an alleged eyebrow was dispute. 

Nearly 100 demonstrators marched and chanted, “Shut them down!” and “No money! No toes! No nails!” outside 888 Happy Red Apple Nails. The protesters also held signs that read “BLACK $$ MATTERS.”

Eventually, bottles, shoes and other objects were tossed at the salon, resulting in the salon’s owner and another employee being escorted out by police officers.

The protest followed a confrontation on Friday night involving three customers and several employees. In video of the incident, two workers smacked the customers with broomsticks as they ran out the door.

Bystander Mercy Maduka, who posted the cellphone footage online, claimed the incident happened after “the Asian lady in the blue shorts messed up the ladies eyebrow and it was completely bald.”

Salon worker Huiyue Zheng, 32, and customer Christina Thomas, 21, were arrested following the incident on charges including misdemeanor assault, harassment and menacing.

Another Instagram user, who claimed to be Thomas’ mother, posted online: “My Mother, daughter and her friend where attack Friday night by a gang of Asian nail technicians. Why? Because, my daughter refused to pay them for a botched 5$ eyebrow wax.”

“Beside them getting hit with sticks, acetone was thrown on them,” she added.

Tionna Smalls, 33, helped organize the protests because she was disgusted by the treatment she witnessed in the video.

“You don’t got no respect for this community, then you don’t get no money in this community. That’s it,” Smalls told the New York Post. “Shut them down, and they need to be arrested for gang assault. If that was a black salon and that happened, we all would have been locked up.”

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