Editor's note: This story was originally published in the Belleville News-Democrat.
It’s been 22 years since Belleville City Council members took action to limit the number of tattoo parlors in the city to two and prohibit any from operating in downtown Belleville.
Times have changed, and apparently so has the city’s attitude toward the now-booming industry.
At last week’s City Council meeting, 15 aldermen voted to amend the ordinance that regulates tattoo parlors, doubling the maximum number in the city and allowing two out of four to operate downtown. Ward 4 Alderman Raffi Ovian was the only “no” vote.
Cliff Cross, director of economic development, planning and zoning, had suggested an ordinance change at a recent meeting of the council’s Ordinance and Legal Review Committee.
More people are getting tattoos, and tattoos are widely considered works of art, Cross said in an interview.
“(Tattoo parlors are) destination businesses,” he said. “People travel to go to their tattoo artists, and that brings people to eat in your restaurants and drink at your bars and walk by and shop at some of your stores. It just makes sense to get at least one downtown.”
The City Council had planned to vote on an amendment keeping the maximum number of tattoo parlors in the city at two but allowing one to operate downtown, according to the meeting agenda.
That was the amendment recommended by the Ordinance and Legal Review Committee, based on Cross’s suggestion that the city take an incremental approach to change.
But just before the vote, Ward 3 Alderman Kent Randle motioned to increase the maximum number of tattoo parlors in the city from two to four and allow two to operate downtown.
Randle said later that the original amendment seemed designed to accommodate one business, Integrity Tattoos, whose owner had expressed an interest in moving to Main Street.
“To eliminate anybody else from being able to compete, I didn’t feel that was right,” Randle said.
30 years of business
Integrity Tattoos, formerly Studio 7, has been operating for 30 years at 324 N. Illinois St., near Ace Hardware and Family Dollar. It’s owned by Jason Wilson, 48, who’s assisted by longtime employee Micah Richter.
After serving in the U.S. Army, Wilson bought the business from his former boss in the late 1990s. His training included working for a year with nationally-known tattoo artist Ken Cameron in Miami.
The Belleville ordinance refers to “tattoo parlors,” but most owners today use the term “tattoo shops,” according to Wilson.
Wilson said many of his customers go to downtown bars and restaurants before or after getting tattoos, and he has long believed his business should be part of the city’s cultural center.
Wilson recently petitioned the city to allow him to move Integrity Tattoos to Main Street after his landlord told him he wanted to sell the building he rents at a price Wilson considered too high, particularly in a neighborhood he described as “rundown.”
“We have zero foot traffic,” he said.
Several other Main Street business owners supported the ordinance change, according to Wilson.
Wilson spoke in favor of the original amendment at the City Council meeting on Tuesday night. He shook his head disapprovingly when aldermen voted to allow two tattoo parlors to operate in downtown Belleville.
“I think it’s bad, and I also think it’s insulting,” Wilson said later. “For 22 years, they didn’t want me down there, and now they’re like, ‘You’re welcome, and we’re going to throw some more competition at you before we even give you a chance to get down there.’”
Wilson said he’s now looking for a building to buy on Main Street with a heightened sense of urgency.
Changing attitudes
Wilson acknowledges that “roughneck bikers” and tattoo artists who lacked respect, education and artistry helped give the tattoo industry a bad reputation in the 1970s and ‘80s.
In 2001, former Belleville Mayor Mark Kern argued that tattoo parlors, like bars and pawn shops, needed to be limited and regulated due to “general concern” in the community.
In June of that year, the City Council approved an ordinance requiring that tattoo parlors obtain special licenses and providing that only two licenses be granted at time.
Six months later, aldermen amended the ordinance to prohibit tattoo parlors from operating in a downtown “special service area” that straddled Main Street (one block north and one block south).
“I think it is a very clean-cut issue of discrimination,” Wilson told the BND after the second vote. “How can they say that our type of business shouldn’t be allowed downtown?”
Former Ward 6 Alderman Bob Blaies, then chairman of the Ordinance and Legal Review Committee, insisted that the city wasn’t trying to discriminate against tattoo parlors, but he maintained that they didn’t fit in very well with other downtown shops.
Blaies said tattoo parlors kept late hours and required more parking.
Two decades later, Alderman Randle agrees that societal attitudes about the tattoo industry have changed and that more people are embracing the idea of “body art” for themselves.
“I don’t have any (tattoos),” he said. “I don’t have any desire to get one. But that doesn’t mean I feel like I can make those decisions for other people. That’s really up to the individual.”
Teri Maddox is a reporter with the Belleville News-Democrat, a news partner of St. Louis Public Radio.
