Salon garnering complaints before opening

MANSFIELD, Mass., Oct. 6 (UPI) -- The owner of a soon-to-open Massachusetts salon featuring women in boxing gear catering to male clients said people got the "wrong idea" from the Internet.

Tom Friday, chief executive officer of the Texas-based Knockouts salon chain, said complaints about the new Mansfield location, which is set to open Nov. 2 next to a family restaurant, likely came from misunderstandings about the business, the Boston Herald reported Tuesday.

Friday said he believes people searching for information on the chain on the Internet may have missed the actual Web site, knockouts.net, and instead stumbled on knockouts.com, an unrelated Web site featuring a sexually suggestive picture of a woman in a bikini.

"I think people may have seen that and got the wrong idea about us," Friday said.

Mansfield Board of Selectmen Chairman Ann Baldwin said she has received "20 to 30 complaints" from residents concerned about the business.

Alyssa Higgins, 21, who works at a Knockouts location in Framingham, Mass., said there is nothing sexual about the services provided by the salon.

"It's very tasteful," she said. "It's about sports -- it's not about the sex appeal. There's a fine line between sexy and too much. I've never had a client make me feel uncomfortable."