An employee of the Portmore beauty salon shows one of the threatening signs posted outside the businessplace yesterday. (Photo: Lionel Rookwood)

THE proprietor of a beauty salon in Portmore, St Catherine was yesterday forced to shut down her business and move out after four male employees - two hairstylists and two nail technicians - were accused of being homosexuals.

When the salon owner and employees turned up at the businessplace yesterday they were met with threatening signs placed at the salon's entrance on the third floor of the Portmore Town Centre Plaza. One ordered that they vacate the store within 24 hours.

"No b.... man round here," read one of the signs shown to the Observer by the store's proprietor. Another one read: "God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve".

According to the owner of the store, who declined to give her name, the four male employees were targeted because persons believe they were homosexuals, an allegation she denied.

"I'm not going to get rid of my man workers, but I'm going to leave and find a new place. I think this is disgraceful," the salon owner told the Observer.

She also said persons have accused the four men of being part of a video of a homosexual party in Montego Bay, St James.

"No gays are not in my shop; you would never find any man putting arguments to another man in my shop," the owner said.

The four men, she said, have been depressed since yesterday's incident. "They feel bad, they feel really intimidated. How would you feel if somebody threatened you to leave your place in 24 hours. What I am going to do next is to report it to the police," she said.

In the meantime, the proprietor of the Portmore Town Centre Plaza, who also declined to be named, condemn yesterday's incident, but said he had warned the owner of the store on several occasions to cut the number of men who visit the store but the owner did not take heed. The high number of male visitors, he said, may have led to the threats.

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