John Boone gives customer Mark Faith a trim Friday afternoon at South Street Hair Styles. Boone will leave the South Street, home to his shop for 35 years, headed to Carthage. (The Vicksburg Post/PAT SHANNAHAN)

[01/29/01] Friday will be it, said downtown barber John Boone who is giving up to pressure he feels from City Hall and will close his shop and move to a new spot in Carthage.

Boone, owner of South Street Hair Styles, has operated in the same small space for 35 years, but the building around him was purchased by the City of Vicksburg six years ago, giving him a new landlord.

“He’s got a lot of regulars and we’re going to miss him,” said Mark Faith, a regular at the shop since 1990.

Faith is from Pennsylvania and said it was people like Boone who made him decide to move to Vicksburg after he retired from the Army.

Another loyal fan, Dewey Brown, said he and his four sons have been Boone customers for 38 years, following him to South Street from an earlier shop on Clay.

“I think he’s getting a raw deal,” Brown said. “What’s wrong with letting him stay here?”

The building, known as the Neill Building, once had spaces leased to a travel agency, a shoe repair facility and an area used as the Open Door Bible Church along with the barber shop before the city bought it. One by one the other shops have left and city programs and administrative offices have expanded into the spaces.

“Everybody else has died off or retired who did business here and I’m the only one who still wants to work,” Boone said.

As each business left, the city expanded its facilities into the building that abuts the south side of City Hall. With the exception of the Crawford Street Post Office, the city now owns and occupies all buildings in the block and most streetside parking is cordoned off for public employees.

Last year, Boone said he began getting word that Mayor Robert Walker wanted him to move to a different downtown location because the city needed his 600 square feet. Tired of hearing the rumors, including one that it was illegal for the city to rent space to him, Boone said he went to see the mayor to ask him directly. Boone said Walker kept promising definitive answers by certain dates, but they never came. Instead, after what Boone called many nerve-wracking weeks, Walker agreed to let him stay, at least until after this year’s city elections. North Ward Alderman Gertrude Young, however, said she’s glad Boone is leaving.

“The city needs to take it over,” Young said. “We need the area for the Vicksburg Senior Center.”

But Walker said it’s Boone’s choice. “No one said the city wanted him out of there,” said Walker. “It’s just a matter of the procedures that have to be there.”

After the first story about Boone’s struggle with City Hall appeared, a petition with 500 signatures supporting him was finalized. Signers included South Ward Alderman Sam Habeeb.

Boone said lately the city has said the shop would have to be appraised and the rent set at a fair market value, which may be higher than the $185 a month Boone is paying today. He said he had no problem with that, but the final straw was when the city first said he had to pay and then said he had to split the cost of three appraisals by a Jackson firm. He said the cost appraisals would be between $2,000 and $3,000.

“They want me to pay for the appraisals to tell me that I have to pay more in rent,” he said. About the same time, an opportunity arose for him closer to his home. So he’ll avoid the commute and the conflict, but miss his customers.

Boone said he would continue cutting hair in Carthage where he and his wife now live. Since his wife got a job there five years ago, he has driven two hours each way to cut hair in Vicksburg.

“If it wasn’t for the uncertainty, I’d still be here,” Boone said. “Vicksburg has been good to me.”