Down the hall from Reed, Robbie Joyner, a year-old small-businessman from Goose Creek, lay on a padded table as artist Steve Beasley worked on an elaborate sleeve running the length of Joyner's arm, the whine of the needle cutting through the pulsing beat of a Montell Jordan song on the stereo.
Joyner had put in about 21 hours on the table getting the sleeve inked, and he figured he had at least nine more to go. If I don't hear that noise, I can't sleep. Perhaps so, but that sound was dampened for decades in South Carolina, where tattoos were taboo in the eyes of the state. South Carolina outlawed tattooing in the s, with lawmakers fearing an epidemic of hepatitis similar to an outbreak that occurred in New York, supposedly traced to a tattoo artist working on Coney Island. Other states took similar measures.
But by , only South Carolina and Oklahoma still outlawed tattooing. Underground artists known as "scratchers" plied their trade during this time, working out of living rooms and garages and rarely possessing formal training in the sanitary requirements of the job. Health concerns over unlicensed artists eventually convinced tattoo opponents in the Legislature to reverse the ban and regulate the parlors.
In addition to sanitary measures, the state imposed restrictions against inking drunk people or tattooing the face, head or neck of another person. Several communities around the state took a cautious approach to allowing the shops within their borders. Charleston, for instance, relegated the shops to light industrial areas where they are neighbors with such businesses as auto body shops. Myrtle Beach kept them to light industrial and medical zones, resulting in most tattoo shops being clumped along Seaboard Street with strip clubs, piercing salons and lingerie stores.
Mike Kerin, an artist at Elite Ink in Myrtle Beach, said about 10 tattoo shops are clustered together in the shopping center where he's located, making for some stiff competition. State Rep. Wendell Gilliard, D-Charleston, was a city councilman when the ban was lifted, and he was among those concerned about tattoo shops attracting riff-raff. Back in , he suggested the parlors "have been connected with drugs, porn and pedophiles.
Gilliard still contends that the shops belong on the outskirts of town, away from quiet neighborhoods, due to what he sees as their propensity to attract "loud motorcycles and crowds of young teenagers coming in.
DHEC has two inspectors who monitor tattoo parlor compliance across the state, and they inspect each facility every three years to ensure they are abiding by state regulations, Beasley said.
Depending on who you talk to in the industry, that is plenty. Many parlors tout their cleanliness and the hospital-grade measures they take to sanitize equipment and properly dispose of materials that contain blood or potential pathogens. As they say, no one wants to make a customer sick or have the stigma of infection hanging over their shop.
Stories still circulate among artists about substandard shops where ashtrays and half-eaten food linger around workstations. And one artist said he bolted from a parlor after he found that it was fudging paperwork and dumping biohazards in the regular trash to save on disposal fees. Kerin, of Myrtle Beach, hasn't seen that happen, but he agrees that some shops could tighten up their acts. DHEC had scant information to provide on the one bacteria outbreak identified in the Lowcountry in Beasley said the agency's staff worked with the unnamed parlor to develop a corrective plan to help prevent further illness.
He said the agency's goal is to help prevent such incidents, and that DHEC inspectors "work with and educate parlor staff members to ensure they have the knowledge and training necessary to perform their jobs safely for themselves and their customers. All the enforcement-action records DHEC provided to The Post and Courier concerned licensing paperwork issues, failure to pay fees on time or improperly attempting to open a tattoo parlor too close to a church.
Jim Hudson Weather Day Forecast. First Alert Hurricane Center. Now Hiring. Community Builder. United for Veterans. Bojangles Birthday Club. Road to Tokyo. Latest Newscasts. About Us. Investigate TV. Gray DC Bureau. They are turned away due to the current law, which restricts tattooing these body parts.
Professional tattoo artists will normally turn people away for other reasons like aesthetics or provocative imagery that will have repercussions on the customer later in life.
These decisions should be left to the individuals, not as a matter of legal prohibition. The sale of merchandise, any merchandise whatsoever, is also prohibited under the law. Many tattoo artists are also fine artists who produce works of art. The prohibition of sales of merchandise prevents an artist of great opportunities to sell their art. Additionally, the sale of miscellaneous merchandise will help strengthen the local economy and generate additional tax revenue for the state.
The prohibition of these small details have a big, and negative, impact on the tattoo community and the culture of the public with whom we create art. MoveOn Civic Action does not necessarily endorse the contents of petitions posted on this site. MoveOn Petitions is an open tool that anyone can use to post a petition advocating any point of view, so long as the petition does not violate our terms of service.
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