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Council isn’t parent, shouldn’t try to stop tattoo shop in Mesa
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When residents of the Dobson Ranch Homeowners Association in west Mesa say that a proposed tattoo shop would not be a welcome addition to the area, they are actually turning their backs on their neighbors.
We’re not talking about the rare pervert or violent criminal lurking in the shadows. This is about the hard-working families of white-collar and blue-collar moms and dads who have used part of their bodies as a canvas for the art of tattooing.
In the past, tattoos have been shunned in American society as a practice of deviants, but no more. Today, tattoos are nearly as common as ear piercing and nail painting. A study published in 2006 by the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology found that one of every four Americans has at least one tattoo, and that number jumped to higher than one in three for people under the age of 31.
So at least a few hundred people in the Dobson Ranch community have a tattoo as well. And why should anyone who wants to join this pop culture phenomenon have to travel to some distant, hidden-away spot to appease those with more conservative tastes?
As Tribune writer Sonu Munshi reported Wednesday, the proposed Angel Tattoo shop meets all of the legal requirements to go into a retail center at the southeast corner of Dobson and Baseline roads. Any objective assessment would consider a tattoo parlor as a reasonable match for a site that already hosts businesses that provide manicures, massages and acupuncture treatments.
But the Mesa City Council has assumed the authority to block the shop anyway, as proprietor Ryan Coleman explains it, “based on council’s feeling on a tattoo parlor.”
This is paternalism at its worst, with government assuming it has to protect people from their own “bad” habits and catering to an old-fashioned notion of propriety that is becoming less accepted each year.
The simple fact is if the people of west Mesa don’t want tattoos, Coleman will go out of business for a lack of customers. The Mesa council should reject the notion that it is the community nanny that gets to say “no” before Coleman even has a chance to try.
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