Daytona Beach tattoo shop looks iffy

DAYTONA BEACH — A final decision won't be made for two weeks, but an effort to open a tattoo shop on Beach Street could already be doomed.

At their meeting Wednesday night, two city commissioners said they probably won't support a crucial rezoning needed to open a tattoo shop on the second floor of the building that houses the Ivory Kitchen Thai Restaurant on Beach Street. If two more decide to vote no at the Commission's Dec. 20 meeting, businessman Robert Mansour will have to kill his tattoo shop dream or try another location.

City Commissioner Ruth Trager said Mansour might run a great business, but once the new zoning would be in place someone else could one day open a tattoo shop there that could be "less than desirable."

"I wonder if it would contribute to the vision we have," Trager said. "I myself am wondering if a tattoo parlor would have a positive or negative effect on Beach Street."

City Commissioner Rob Gilliland said he thinks "it's unlikely" he'll support the tattoo shop rezoning when it comes up for a final vote later this month.

"I don't see any public purpose or good," Gilliland said.

Three city boards that voted on the tattoo shop proposal before it came to the City Commission had lackluster support for the project. The Historic Preservation Board recommended approval on a 4-2 vote, the Downtown Redevelopment Board voted, 3-2, against the plan and the city's Planning Board weighed in with a 4-2 vote of approval.

Colleen Miles, president of Land Development Resource Group, a local urban planning consultation firm, represents Mansour. Neither Miles nor Mansour spoke at Wednesday's meeting.  Miles, who formerly worked as the city's zoning officer, recently said she doesn't understand the resistance from redevelopment board members who said they felt tattoo shops belonged on Main Street and other places where bikers go. "We've come a long way. It's not negatively thought of," Miles said, explaining how mainstreamed tattooing has become.

Miles has said Mansour's shop would mainly take clients who had appointments, and he would run a high-end operation in an attractive studio with wood floors and French doors. "In reading the (city's) comprehensive plan, they want it to be arts and entertainment, and mixed use," Miles said. Miles has produced letters from entrepreneurs on Beach Street who are supportive of a tattoo shop opening there, but Trager said she's also talked to Beach Street opponents of the effort.

Since a de facto ban on tattoo shops in Daytona Beach that had lingered for decades was lifted in April, several people have come to City Hall eager to open a tattoo parlor. The Nines Parlor opened in June at 1355 Beville Road, and, in October, Victory Tattoo was given approval to open a tattoo parlor and museum on Main Street just in time for Biketoberfest.

Daytona Hardcore Tattoo is hoping to open the second beachside shop since the early 1970s. The business has long sold designs in its store at 20 S. Atlantic Ave. and driven clients outside city limits to give tattoos. But Daytona Hardcore Tattoo needs to get a planned development zoning to do tattooing in the oceanfront store just south of Main Street.

Others have checked into opening tattoo shops on North Ridgewood Avenue and east International Speedway Boulevard, and there could be more tattoo shop hopefuls coming. City leaders have said they won't cap the number of tattoo shops, and would only challenge a properly licensed operation if it became a health and safety issue.

Tattoo artists are regulated by the Volusia County Health Department, and the zoning of a prospective business site will determine the review process of the city. If a property is zoned for business automotive uses, an operation can open fairly easily as long as it meets basic requirements for new businesses. Those who want to open in areas zoned for other uses have a more difficult task. They have to seek a rezoning for a planned development, which means going through reviews by city staff, redevelopment area boards, the Planning Board and finally the City Commission for the final answer. Until April, the only part of Daytona Beach that allowed tattoo parlors was west of Interstate 95 in an area zoned for heavy industry, and no one has ever opened a tattoo studio there. Businesses could have tried to get planned developments in the past, but not in the city's five redevelopment areas that include the high-traffic State Road A1A, Main Street, Beach Street, Ridgewood Avenue and International Speedway Boulevard on the beachside and around Nova Road. There was an outright ban on tattoo shops in redevelopment areas that was lifted in April. Legal action is what prompted city officials to seek a change in tattoo shop rules. Two years ago, city staff members started encouraging a rule relaxation in the wake of a precedent-setting lawsuit regarding tattoo parlor location in Key West that concluded having one area for tattoo shops wasn't enough and suggested tattooing is a protected form of artistic expression under the First Amendment. In other action at Wednesday night's meeting, commissioners approved the appointment of Ponce Inlet Council Member Bill Milano to the First Step Shelter Board that's overseeing construction of a homeless shelter west of Interstate 95. City commissioners also voted to hire J.D. Weber Construction Co. of Ormond Beach to construct a sanitary sewer pump station and extend utilities to the undeveloped homeless shelter site on the south side of International Speedway Boulevard near Red John Drive. The city will pay $543,655 to the company to complete the project, which will also involve directional drilling under International Speedway Boulevard to extend a 6-inch fiber optic line, 6-inch force main piping and a 12-inch water line. In a third item, commissioners voted to amend the city's Land Development Code to permit additional two-year extensions for temporary redevelopment project parking lots that are located on property that is part of an unexpired development agreement that was approved by the City Commission, demonstrate a need for the extension and meet all temporary parking lot standards. The owners of a parking lot near the Boardwalk, a site long targeted for a new hotel, requested the change.