Employee Claims Boca Mayor’s Wife Said “It’s Okay To Open.”
“I Sell Clothes For Newborns!” Screams Woman Before Cutting Call.
UPDATE: 3:57pm — Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer responds.
UPDATE: 3:42pm — Store Owner Calls To “Clarify” Position. See end of story.
BOCA RATON, FL (BocaNewsNow.com) — Elegant Child, a clothing store at 59 South Federal Highway in Boca Raton is advertising that it’s open for private appointments.
BocaNewsNow.com readers asked us how that’s possible, when other stores are ordered closed.
We called Elegant Child where a staffer handed us off to a woman who first told us that Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer’s wife said it’s “okay” for them to open, then explained that a child’s clothing store is an “essential business.”
“We sell clothes for newborns,” said the woman. “We are essential. Babies have to have clothes.”
“My wife did not say they could be open,” said Mayor Singer, whose wife is not an elected official. “She told them that retail stores were still closed under state order, but that some businesses were doing delivery and pickup.”
While delivery and pickup is acceptable under current rules, BocaNewsNow.com was unable to locate an “essential” exception for children’s clothing stores that sell onesies for newborns.
“Why are golfers allowed to golf and why can people go the park but I’m not allowed to open?!” yelled the woman at us before hanging up the phone. “I don’t give you permission to write about my store.”
UPDATE: Elegant Child owner Corinne Barth called BocaNewsNow.com roughly ten minutes after this story first appeared to clarify that she couldn’t obtain clarity from the City of Boca Raton about whether she could open the store to “private” customers.
“I kept calling the City,” said Barth. “But no one ever called back.”
Barth also told BocaNewsNow.com that she doesn’t understand why stores like Target are allowed to be open but she is not.
