Shears Beauty and Barber Shop has stood on the corner of Third and Newhall in Bayview, San Francisco, since 1949. Laron Criswell’s and Kevin Traksley’s grandfather, Howard Crowther, bought the business in 1971, their parents took it on after him, and the two cousins have been cutting hair there since 1997 and 1998 respectively. It is one of the oldest barbershops in the city, and one of its oldest Black-owned businesses, in a neighbourhood where a lot of those have closed.
None of that is why we are writing about them. This is.
Free cuts, every September
Every year, as the new school term approaches, Criswell and Traksley put their own money together, lower the chairs to child height and give free haircuts to the neighbourhood’s kids, with a backpack giveaway alongside. Through the rest of the year they offer discounted cuts to foster youth and their families. They have kept it going through the pandemic and through the slow trade that followed it on Bayview’s commercial strip, which Criswell says is quieter now than it has ever been.
This August they had help. A local nurse, Widmear “Wid” Jean-Mary, who runs a Bay Area events group called A Thing to Talk About, used what was left of his pay cheque to cover haircuts for 38 children. He and his business partner sat in the shop and watched it fill up: cousins playing hide and seek between the chairs, a student sitting still while Criswell cut his hair and told him to stay in school.
What the shop is for
Mission Local’s reporter found regulars dropping in with no intention of getting a haircut, one of them arriving with food for the owner to try. Criswell, by his own account, makes them sweep the floor. In the 1960s the shop was known as the unofficial barber to the San Francisco Giants. Today it is the place on the corner that people still walk into for no particular reason, which is a rarer thing than it sounds.
Asked why they do the free cuts, Criswell’s answer was simple: the shop knows the people and the people know the shop. And on what a haircut means to him: “I like to make my neighborhood look better, one head at a time.”
That is what a barber can be. A fixed point on a corner for 77 years, and a business that quietly pays for the kids around it to start school looking sharp.
On September 16th, barbers everywhere use their skills as a force for good, each in their own way. Know a shop like Shears in your community? Tell us about them, and if you run a shop, register it for World Barber Day.
Source: Mission Local, “For years, one of S.F.’s oldest barbershops has been giving out free back-to-school haircuts,” by Marina Newman, 12 September 2026. Photo courtesy of Shears Beauty and Barber Shop.
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