A frustrated, defiant and emotional Mobile barbershop owner was forced to close his business Wednesday after a personal intervention from the city’s top law enforcement official.

The drama unfolded after Joel Edwards, who runs Mike’s Barbershop with his dad on Schillinger Road, reopened the shop Tuesday - defying Governor Kay Ivey’s health orders and attracting the attention of local law enforcement. He was issued a cease and desist order and fined $500.

By 9 a.m. the next day, Edwards was outside his barbershop and ready to go again. He was prepared to be arrested, he told AL.com. All three barbers had filled every single appointment through the end of the week, mostly with people who sympathized with their principled stand and difficult financial circumstances.

“I have worked my entire life to build what I have and I’m at risk of losing it,” Edwards told AL.com in an interview outside his barbershop. “I don’t have any money left. I have to come back to work and I’m not the only one. I’m part of the majority who [are] about to lose their livelihood.”

“I’m not the outlaw,” he added.

Edward’s decision to reopen his family barbershop comes as counties, states and even entire continents weigh the consequences of restarting stalled economies with the possibility that doing so could infect and kill more people. As a result of mass business closures, unemployment in the U.S. is at levels not seen since the Great Depression, while attempts at stabilizing small businesses have stuttered through complicated bureaucracy within the nation’s financial institutions and in Congress.

Joel Edwards cutting the hair of a customer. Edwards defied state orders to reopen his business.

The decision to reopen resulted in Edwards, his dad and fellow barber Justin Bouchard being threatened on social media. Bouchard said he’d canceled his appointments for the day because he’d received death threats, while threats to shoot any police officer who walked into the barbershop were made to MPD in his name, he said. Bouchard said he is former military police officer with the U.S. Army.

Before Edwards had opened for the day, several people were waiting outside and employees at neighboring businesses were watching on. One man who preferred to remain anonymous handed Edwards the $500 to pay the fine. Inside the barbershop, the chairs were six feet apart, while each person wore a face mask and gloves.

Not long after Edwards finished his first appointment of the day, the city’s director of public safety and former chief of police arrived alone to speak with the three men. Media were asked to leave.

After more than an hour and half of discussion, Director of Public Safety James Barber said that while he desperately wanted to get businesses open again and people back to work, it had to be done in the safest way possible while also respecting existing state orders and laws.

“The shop has agreed to close down and work with us on making sure we have a good phased approach that everyone can agree on, with pressure from the mayors to get the governor to accept these types of protocols. Again, the idea being is we don’t ever want to be put in the situation where we’re criminalizing normally law-abiding citizens.

“I have the utmost respect for the guys that are working here and the situation they are in, and they are not unique in that we have a lot of people that are very worried about paying the bills. I think there’s a way forward. I think we can get America back to work, but we have to do so deliberately working together and not at odds with each other.”

Barber said he would be open to taking them to Montgomery to meet with the governor. “But I also see Mike’s barbershop as the perfect test to where government can work with industries to get them back open.”

Barber said that in the meantime the men had agreed to take the antibodies test and any subsequent tests to ensure the business opened safely. Edwards wasn’t sure when the test could be administered or how long it might take.

Later in the day, Edwards took to social media to talk about his meeting with Barber and why he was now prepared to follow orders handed down by the governor.

“The chief is sympathetic to our cause and understands why I made the moves I did, but I am not someone who deserves special treatment,” wrote Edwards on the shop’s Facebook page Wednesday morning.” Had I not complied, it wasn’t me who was going to suffer the consequences and pay the price. A padlock was going to be put on the shop door, and for the next two months, my father, my best friend, every barber in the shop would be forced to be closed.”

Joel Edwards reopened his barbershop in West Mobile. He was fined $500.

“My father has worked his whole life to be able to live a quiet one. Through my actions today, I risked not just my own life, but that of him and my mother, who if I continued on, would have lost their mortgage, vehicle, and lives as they know it.”

He added: “I am so sorry to everyone who believed in me to be their voice. I am so sorry to have let you down. But I will give it my best effort to put faith and hope into Chief Barber and hopefully the voice of the people through this is enough to get our community back to work.”