Beauty Mart eviction leaves mess in Jonesboro parking lot

JONESBORO, Ga. - Clayton County Jail inmates were enlisted to help clean up after a Jonesboro beauty supply store was evicted. 

SKYFOX 5 flew over the parking lot of the Beauty Mart located in the Tara Crossing shopping center off Upper Riverdale Road where hundreds of people had gathered. The store’s product was dumped in the parking lot.

Massive crowd shows up at evicted beauty supply store in Clayton County

"As a result of the eviction, the word spread through social media that the products of the business had been placed outside of the location which caused a large crowd," a statement from the Clayton County Police Department reads in part.

People who showed up believed the merchandise dumped in the parking lot was free for the taking.

"It was calm, and then I guess everybody made a phone call, and it got a little out of control, a little bit like Freaknik '96," said Jacqueline Callaway, who was hoping to scoop up some free products.

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"Wigs, braiding hair, make up, lashes, earrings," Syntoria Bryant, a nail technician, listed some of the items people were hoping to collect.

Instead, Clayton County Police, Clayton Sheriff’s deputies, and Riverdale Police established a perimeter around the merchandise. Then, they brought in an envoy dump trucks and vans with incarcerated workers to clear the area.

Jail inmates were seen helping to load some of those products onto a trailer.

"When the citizens are evicted, [their stuff is] up for grabs, so we were assuming that things were up for grabs," Callaway said.

Many attendees believed the same.

"As someone in the industry, it definitely would’ve been helpful," Bryant added. "Kids could use these supplies for hair, there are book bags in there, shoes in there, the hair store sells all kinds of stuff."

Georgia state law stipulates that once a judge issues a writ of possession in eviction cases, deputies can remove the tenant’s belongings and toss them to the curb. Then, the property is generally considered abandoned.

"When people get evicted on the streets, they’re not like this, they don’t make sure people’s stuff don’t get touched when we get evicted," one person noted.

Fox Five’s I-Team discovered that a judge granted a writ of possession to the store’s landlord on July 26, which deputies executed this past Friday. 

Sheriff Levon Allen, who spoke exclusively with FOX 5 in front of the store, said he does not consider the property abandoned.

"It’s not my property, it’s not their property," Sheriff Allen said. When asked who it belongs to, he said, "The owners."

Efforts to contact the store owner were unsuccessful.

At 9 p.m., the Lovejoy Police Department posted a new video showing all the products had been dumped at a landfill.

"It is important to know that all items are currently being destroyed and unable to be collected," a spokesperson for the department said. "The Lovejoy Police Department will be monitoring the area."