A girl celebrating her 12th birthday said she was ‘humiliated’ by staff at a Dunstable salon after accidentally knocking over a bottle of nail polish.
Anais Bunyan and a schoolfriend went to get their nails painted at Classic Nails in Vernon Place on Friday, August 23, as a treat for her birthday two days previous.
But after innocently knocking the bottle of varnish onto the floor, Ashton Middle School pupil Anais said she was “shouted and screamed” at by a member of staff.
She told the Gazette: “I said ‘woah, I’m sorry’ and started to clean it up but she just screamed at me in a foreign language.
“She shouted ‘£12! £12!’ but I told her I didn’t have £12. Then she shouted ‘£8!’ – it was the last of my birthday money.”
Handing over the money meant that Anais’ friend could not have her nails done, and Anais could not afford the bus fair to visit her grandma in Houghton Regis afterwards.
She still had her nails done but said staff were giving her “evil eyes” the whole time.
Anais’ mother Lis, of The Mall, Dunstable, said: “They intimidated her into paying the money.
“They’ve gone about it the wrong way. They should have asked for my phone number and spoke to me about it.
“She’s a good girl, I know she would have been sat having her nails done with tears in her eyes. She had to sit there humiliated. I rang the salon but was given no explanation. I was just fobbed off.”
Hoang Hoa of Classic Nails said: “We don’t think we needed to call her parents.
“We asked her to pay and she paid. We need to pay for our stock.”
