Between 2016 and 2018, four complaints were filed to New York City’s human rights commission about the management and one senior stylist at Sharon Dorram Color at Sally Hershberger. The resulting investigation into the salon led, in part, to the announcement last week of the city’s ban on discrimination based on hair.

The first complaint was filed in July 2016 by a former general manager who is white and said he felt sickened by being asked t o implemen t an employee hair policy that he said was applied more to black workers t han white ones . The second complaint was filed in December 2016 by a former receptionist, who is black and said she was a target of racial discrimination.

Two other complaints were filed in June 2018. One was from a former receptionist who is Hispanic and claimed she was asked to steer clients away from stylists who refused to sign a document attesting to the fairness of the salon’s dress code. The document, she said, stated that the dress code was longstanding and applied equally to black and white workers . (The fourth complaint was filed by a white stylist who said he was called an anti-Semitic slur and had his career threatened when he sought legal counsel. The complaints from 2018 were first reported by the New York Post.)

Interviewed at the salon on Wednesday, Ms. Dorram refused to address specific details of the complaints because the investigation is still open but said, “None of it is true.” Ms. Hershberger, an owner of the salon with Ms. Dorram and Steven Tuttleman, a financier, also denied being involved in any racial discrimination. (As co-owners, all three are named as respondents in the investigation complaints.)

Five former employees at Sharon Dorram Color at Sally Hershberger, and a lawyer for two others, described to this reporter a racially charged atmosphere that was particularly tense during the summer of 2015. That August, the dress code was disseminated verbally. Along with reminding employees that clothing should be black and that bluejeans, ripped clothing and nose rings were forbidden, it required shoulder-length hair to be pulled up or back.