A Jonesboro Salon Owner Beat Clayton County's Zoning Board to Open Her Doors

Creative Crowns Collective, a natural hair and braiding salon planned for a long-vacant storefront at 9526 S. Main St. in unincorporated Jonesboro, finally has Clayton County's sign-off to open. Owner Khalilah Few applied for the conditional use permit the county requires for hair salons and barbershops in that stretch's Business Corridor Overlay District back in 2025. County planning staff and a divided Zoning Advisory Group recommended denial, citing "saturation" -- three similar salons already within one to five miles -- and the county's Comprehensive Plan. The Board of Commissioners rejected her application on July 15, 2025.

What makes the story worth telling isn't the denial, it's what the county's own rule does and doesn't cover. The overlay district requires that permit for hair salons and barbershops specifically, while a dry cleaner, a tailor or a watch-repair shop can move into the same storefront with no extra approval. Few sued with help from the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit law firm, arguing the county had no business deciding how much hair-braiding competition a neighborhood is allowed to have. More than a year after she filed, the Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to approve her permit.

The fight cost her real money and real time: over $20,000 sunk into renovations and rent on the Jonesboro space, on top of at least $30,000 in rent paid across that location and an earlier one while the application sat in limbo. More than 50 letters of community support went in on her behalf during the process. As of the county's approval in mid-September, Few said she was finishing renovations and hoped to open within a few weeks -- so by the time you're reading this, the doors may already be open or close to it.

Creative Crowns Collective is a natural hair and braiding studio built around training stylists in the kind of work -- braiding, protective styles, natural hair care -- that a lot of chain salons in Clayton County don't specialize in. For a client moving to Jonesboro or anywhere in unincorporated Clayton who wants that kind of specialist nearby rather than a drive into the city, this is the business to know about, and the story behind it is part of why it's worth remembering the name.

There's a second, more practical reason this belongs on a realtor's site. If you're the kind of buyer who might someday want to open your own storefront in Clayton County -- a salon, a boutique, any business the county treats as needing extra scrutiny under its overlay districts -- this case is a real example of how that process can go, and how long it can take even when it eventually goes your way. Worth asking the county's planning office directly about a specific address and use before signing a lease, not after.

If you're already in the area and want a braiding appointment, call ahead rather than just driving over -- this is a very new opening and public hours and booking details hadn't surfaced as of this writing.