The U.S. Secret Service found its way into a hair salon near the Colonial Theatre. Its owner says they didn't ask permission (2024)

PITTSFIELD— If the U.S. Secret Service had simply asked, Alicia Powers would have been happy to let its officers use her hair salon—across a parking lot from the back of the Colonial Theatre— as a comfort station the day of Vice President Kamala Harris’ visit to Pittsfield.

“I'm the kind of person that would have set up coffee and doughnuts for them had they asked me for permission,” said Powers, the owner of Four One Three Salon at 54 Wendell Ave.

But they didn’t ask Powers, or her landlord, she said.

Instead, they taped over a security camera on the back porch, broke into the salon, helped themselves to the bathroom, ate the mints on the counter and left without tidying up thebathroom or locking the back door on the way out.

Powers said the Secret Service’s Boston office has apologized on behalf of the agency. She also said Pittsfield Police officers up to and including Chief Thomas Dawley have been helpful and supportive of her efforts to get accountability.

The person she spoke with at the Secret Service confirmed that the woman who taped over the Ring camera at about 8:12 a.m. July 27 was with the agency. She also said the agency offered to pay to have the salon cleaned and pay for any damages, and also pay for the business’ private alarm bill “because it was going off for so long.”

“I was happy withhis apology. It's a little bit of accountability. Again, I wasn't looking to do anything,” Powers said.

But she was particularly alarmed about the agents leaving the space so vulnerable after they left.

“We're a small business. We've all worked incredibly hard to build this business," she said. "This is our livelihood. And it could have been taken from all of my 12 employees in a flash.”

A voice mail message left Friday at the Secret Service’s Boston office seeking comment was not returned by press time Friday. But Secret Service spokesperson Melissa McKenzietold iBerkshires, which first reported the incident, that the agency had reached out.

"We hold these relationships in the highest regard and our personnel would not enter, or instruct our partners to enter, a business without the owner's permission," McKenzie said, according to the report.

While the apology helped, Powers still feels violated, disrespected and a little angry.

“When they cleaned up and they left the tape on my camera and they left my back door completely unlocked," she said. "What could have happened in that hour and a half or two hours that you guys left the building unlocked?”

A city native, Powers worked at salons across the county before opening Four One Three Salon more than five years ago, in what was formerly a suite of law offices.

The Secret Service first approached Powers on that Tuesday, and conducted a security sweep of the building Thursday. In the meantime, Powers headed to Cape Cod for a previously scheduled vacation.

At 8:12 a.m. Saturday, Powers’ phone alerted her that there was activity on the salon’s back porch.

“She walkedaround the porch, walked around the side of the building and then popped back up on the porch, grabbed the chair, hopped up and taped the camera," Powers said of what the footage showed. "It blacked out the camera completely.”

Powers drove home from Cape Cod, arriving at 1 p.m., and checked her phone upon arrival. It told her that people started entering the building about 12:42 p.m.

How does she know? “Because I have cameras everywhere,” she said.

For two hours, people came and left the salon, she said.

“From the communication I've heard from the EMS workers, somebody dressed in all black was telling them to come in and use the bathroom all afternoon,” she said. She heard a similar story from Berkshire County Sheriff’s deputies when she drove to her business at 4 p.m., after the crowd that gathered for a glimpse of Harris had gone home.

Powers reached out to Pittsfield Police and let them know what happened. They confirmed city officers had not used the salon’s bathroom, then put her in touch with a Secret Service representative in New York.

“He was telling me thatit couldn't have been them; it's not what they do. They ask for permission,” Powers said she was told by the New York Secret Service office. “And he kind of ended the conversation with telling me, 'Do you think we need to deal with this right now with what we have going on?' And my response was, ‘Sir, I'm not trying to be rude but I don't deserve to deal with this right now either.’”

Powers said she normally doesn’t seek media attention. “This isn't OK,” she said, however. “I'm a very private person. I usually don't put myself out there like that. … I just wanted some kind of accountability.”