A bill aiming to make it safer to get inked up in California has been introduced for the third time.
Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger twice vetoed Assemblywoman Fiona Ma’s proposal to implement new regulations for tattoo parlors, calling them unnecessary. Ma introduced a new bill, AB 300, in February.
Schwarzenegger was especially critical in his second veto message regarding AB 223, issued in September 2010:
It is a common complaint within the business community that 'overregulation' is driving businesses out of California. Look no further than AB 223 for such an example.
He concludes by saying while some may consider the issue important, "it is not appropriate to tell tattoo artists through the statute how to wash their hands and fold their trash bags one inch over the rim of a trashcan."
On the contrary, proponents say.
“There was absolutely no rational reason for that bill to be vetoed,” Bruce Pomer, executive director of the Health Officers Association of California, said. “It was strictly personal, and it was totally inappropriate.”
AB 223 passed the Assembly with a 66-6 vote, and cleared the Senate 30-4.
The bill “had unprecedented industry and public health support,” Pomer said.
Ma’s bill aims to strengthen existing regulations, including requiring tattoo artists to register annually with local authorities and to meet specified vaccination, blood-borne pathogen training and sanitation requirements. Owners of tattoo facilities would have to obtain and annually renew a local health permit and maintain the facility in specified ways.
Additionally, the bill would authorize health officials to inspect tattoo facilities and suspend their registration under certain circumstances. Owners who operated tattoo shops without the necessary permits could be charged with a misdemeanor and fined between $25 and $1,000, with local regulators determining the exact amount.
Current laws require tattoo artists to register in the county where they do business, obtain a copy of the county’s sterilization, sanitation and safety rules and pay a one-time fee of $25. Counties may charge a higher fee at their discretion and can choose to adopt tougher regulations, although only six of the state's 58 counties do so.
In Sacramento County, the Board of Supervisors put off voting on an ordinance in May 2010 to regulate its estimated 165 body art businesses after criticism from artists who disagreed with sections of it. Tattoo artists who register in the county must pay a one-time fee of $47, and the county’s one page registration form [PDF] asks only for individual and business names, address and phone number, and categorizes the artist as specializing in tattoos, body piercing, or permanent cosmetics.
The effort to strengthen safety standards for tattoo parlors dates to the late 1990s, Pomer said, when the California Conference of Local Health Officers began examining the issue.
In Schwarzenegger’s 2010 veto message, he wrote that the specific regulations did not need to be passed in the Legislature. “If the sponsors wanted a bill that addressed the purported problem, a simple statutory authorization for the Department of Public Health to promulgate standardized regulations would have been acceptable,” Schwarzenegger wrote.
Advocates decided to push for a statute regulating tattoo shops because they wanted it addressed in a more timely fashion, Pomer said.
Schwarzenegger had previously vetoed a 2009 version of Ma’s bill, AB 517. “I am unaware of why the state must take further action to regulate these businesses,” Schwarzenegger wrote in vetoing the measure.
Pomer said he does not expect a similar reaction from Gov. Jerry Brown and that the Safe Body Art Act will likely become law.
http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/third-try-stricter-tattoo-shop-regulations-9666
April 06, 2011|By Walter Pacheco, Orlando Sentinel
Jason Lynn Gay is accused of wielding a sword in one hand and a guitar in another when he allegedly attacked an Orlando tattoo artist and his customer in an assault worthy of a Kill Bill movie.
Monday's ambush turned ugly for Gay when one of his victims retaliated by slamming a glass tabletop over his head — leaving him in a wheelchair with a bloody face and in the Orange County Jail on two counts of attempted second-degree murder.
"I'm very fortunate to be in better shape than [Gay]," tattoo artist Patrick Walker said Wednesday. "If it was just me in there alone, I don't know what would have happened."
Gay, a 37-year-old homeless felon with 'Nazi' tattooed on one arm and 'Wizard' on the other, also faces two counts of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and two counts of battery. An Orange County judge set his bond at zero.
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2011-04-06/news/os-orlando-sword-attack-20110406_1_tattoo-artist-tattoo-shop-tattoo-parlor
THE FIRST ONE FROM TODAY WAS MISSING SOME KEY POINTS. YIPPEE TO TECHNOLOGY!
HERE IS WHAT IS WAS SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE!
Hey All!
First we want to send out a very large THANK YOU to all who participated in our Vote 2 Win Contest! You guys really stepped up and showed your support not only to Tatshirts.com but to the artists on the site! GREAT WORK EVERYONE!
Now for the crappy part…… Due to the fact that we only had only 85 people vote during the Vote 2 Win Contest, we cannot offer up the i-Pad as the grand prize. For those of you who won a free tee we hope you enjoy it!
Now I know how much this really SUCKS, but there is hope. We still have the i-Pad AND we still want to give it to you, so this is what we are going to do.
We want YOU to decide the contest. That’s right; we are giving YOU full reign. YOU shoot us an e-mail, we will then take in all your feedback, then we will sift through them all and come up with the best choices. We will then put out a questionnaire with the final ideas. You then tell us which one you want!
Tatshirts.com wants the community to come together and shake things up! Ultimately, YOU GET TO DECIDE!
And as always we have our on going contests still up and running!
$500 Custom Design Contest! http://www.tatshirts.com/subterms.php
$100 On-line tattoo Contest! http://www.tatshirts.com/tattooterms.php
Finally, if there are any Artists out there looking to show off your skills drop us an e-mail we’ll get an interview from ya with some pics of your work, and it will go right up on our Featured Artist Page!
Thanks all!
BIG STEVE!
Hey All!
First we want to send out a very large THANK YOU to all who participated in our Vote 2 Win Contest! You guys really stepped up and showed your support not only to Tatshirts.com but to the artists on the site! GREAT WORK EVERYONE!
Now for the crappy part…… Due to the fact that we only had only 85 people vote during the Vote 2 Win Contest, we cannot offer up the i-Pad as the grand prize. For those of you who won a free tee we hope you enjoy it!
Now I know how much this really SUCKS, but there is hope. We still have the i-Pad AND we still want to give it to you, so this is what we are going to do.
We want YOU to decide the contest. That’s right; we are giving YOU full reign. YOU shoot us an e-mail we will take in all your feedback, then we will sift through them all come up with the best choices. We will then put out a questionnaire with the final ideas. You then tell us which one you want!
$500 Custom Design Contest! http://www.tatshirts.com/subterms.php
$100 On-line Tattoo Contest! http://www.tatshirts.com/tattooterms.php
Thanks all!
BIG STEVE!
Time keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin........YOU WANT TO WIN RIGHT? We want you to win too! But we need more peoples to vote! YOU CAN DO IT!
Spread the word and you could be rewarded! Maybe a FREE Tatshirts.com Logo Tee.....Maybe a BRAND SPANKIN' NEW i-Pad!
Damn that's awesome........
The design contest is always on, so feel free to submit some of your best pieces! $500 could be yours! Just ask one of previous winners! I dare ya! I'll even give you the link!
http://www.tatshirts.com/winners.php
AND week five will soon be over and we're still not at our goal. We've had a few this past week but need at least 20 more participants.
I will go over this one more time peoples......FREE TO JOIN, FREE TO VOTE, FREE TO SUBMIT, FREE TO BE FREE OF FREEING FREENESS! Oh and it's all FREE too! So you get a newsletter almost every week? Wow, yeah, that sucks huh. LMAO!
SO when you tell your friends about us and they ask "What's the catch man?" You can tell them, "Not a damn thing bro."
Oh yeah, we rock.
Laters....
Big Steve.
75 members have now voted. That means we still need 25 members to vote on some really cool designs. The artist need your votes and input.
Our Vote 2 Win contest fell short of the required rules......so in order to give someone a chance of winning an i-Pad, which we really want to happen by the way, we are going to extend the voting contest 1 more week.
We need the support of the community to get this done. Get everyone you know to sign up and vote for their favorite designs! As members you already know it's 100% FREE to join and we have a lot of great giveaways, so help us out and help yourself for future promotions!
Thank you all and I know we can do it!
We still need 27 members new or old to vote on a design so we can giveaway the apple I-Pad 2. There are 14 left. Vote,Vote,Vote.
We have 71 different people that have voted so far. That means we only need 29 more people to vote for there favorite t-shirt designs. Come on people we have over 700 members and we can't get 100 people to vote for these amazing artists t-shirt designs. Vote now!
Just in case you didn't know or forgot, we offer artists the chance to $500 by entering their designs into the voting contest. You then vote for your favorite ones. That's how the artists win.......by your votes.......we even put together a voting contest so EVERYONE had a chance of winning stuff including a i-Pad. 100 people had to vote for the i-Pad to be issued as a prize. 100. That's all.
1 day left for this contest........1 day.
Only 2 days remain for the Vote 2 Win Contest! We still need more people to vote on order for the i-Pad to be won, so let's get to spreading the word! WE WANT YOU TO WIN! Spread this contest out like wildfire! Help these artists out and you could win big! Laters!
Vidal Sassoon. Nicky Clarke. John Frieda. Hairdressers to the stars have become as recognisable as their big-name clients. And the cult of the super-stylist – Rachel Zoe and her TV show, Sex and the City’s Patricia Field – has seen onceunknown wardrobe mistresses become household names.
Now, though, a new breed of A-list primpers have joined their ranks – step forward the celebrity tattooist. You may not have heard of Louis Molloy, but you will have seen his work. The tattoo artist is responsible for the majority of David Beckham’s body art. Molloy began his tattooing career in the Seventies, when it was a very different business than it is today.
Once the preserve of sailors, criminals and outsiders, tattoos are now so common one even adorns the ankle of the Prime Minister’s wife. And just as getting a tattoo no longer raises eyebrows, neither does choosing a career as a tattoo artist. Molloy has been one of the biggest names in British tattooing for some time. When Beckham unveiled the whopping guardian angel tattoo on his back just over a decade ago, Molloy found his artwork on the front page of almost every national newspaper.
“It was a bit scary to be honest,” recalls Molloy. “The problem with a lot of press, especially the tabloids, is that they write what they want to write. The word that kept cropping up was ‘outraged’; that people were outraged at this tattoo, as if they were rioting in the street. It’s absolutely rubbish but they were just trying to stir people up. You could argue that any PR is good PR, which to an extent it is, but sometimes there’s a negative side to it aswell.” Having such a famous ambassador for his work has meant that Molloy is so popular that he now boasts a sixmonth waiting list. In fact, I can hear the needle whirring in the background while I’m onthe phone to him. Yes, he’s so busy that he’s forced to brand someone as we chat. Molloy is under no illusions as to why he is so in demand, and realises that people want a tattoo by the guy who did the Beckhams. “It’s like an endorsement, isn’t it?” offers Molloy.
It seems we are so influenced by celebrity these days that we not only want the same haircut or handbag as someone we admire, we also want their tattoo artist. When casting London Ink, a reality television show set in a London tattoo studio, the producers knew they had to have Molloy on board. “He’s very passionate about the artwork and clear about why he loves doing it,” explains Victoria Noble, the executive producer. “And if you’re putting a studio together, you want people to be recognisable as well as having recognisable work and he’s worked with so many footballers and rock stars.”
Noble also hopes that the programme made the world of tattooing more accessible to those who may have previously been intimidated by it. “I hope it showed tattoo parlours in a different light. I like to think of the London Ink tattoo studio as a very friendly place to be.” Molloy’s appearance on the show has led to numerous business offers from some unlikely sources, including Marks and Spencer, that staple of British middle class life. This May he will also launch Lou Molloy menswear, a range of streetwear which feature his original designs.
One T-shirt inevitably sports a familiar winged angel figure on the front. London Inkwas a spin-off of the hugely popular Miami Ink and LA Ink, which have been responsible for unleashing some of the biggest names in tattooing on the world. Having appeared in the original Miami version of the show, Kat Von D was offered LA Ink as her own vehicle and is now one of the most successful tattooists to cross over into the mainstream. Spurred on, no doubt, by being engaged to Sandra Bullock’s exhusband Jesse James, Von D has appeared in music videos, launched a make-up line and released a selection of fragrances. Her book High Voltage Tattoo even made it on to the New York Times bestseller list. It’s also not uncommon for a wellknown tattooist’s designs to be in demand for other products.
Having stamped much of the so-called Primrose Hill set, including Kate Moss and Jude Law, and gaining a two-year waiting list as a result, Saira Hunjan found that doors opened for her. “Because it’s such a small circle of people they just told each other about me,” says Hunjan. “A lot of people look up to them so I guess they like to go by their recommendation.” Hunjan was asked to design a range of T-shirts for the now defunct Luella label and she is currently branching out into silk scarves and home accessories. “I’m inspired by art from Mexico and India, religious art, goddesses and gypsy art. The stuff I’m designing is based on the imagery I like.”
As tattoos become more ubiquitous, we’re set to see even more of the tattooistas- celebrity. In the future, some tattoo artists will be revered in the same way as big name hairdressers are. And one thing’s for sure, tattoos have been embraced by the mainstream – although not every tattooist is convinced that’s a good thing. “It’s a bit of a two-edged sword,” Molloy points out. “Because if something is made extremely popular then there could come a time when it becomes very unpopular. With every up, there’s always the risk of a down.”
Link to Article: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/features/celebrity-tattoo-artists--who-do-they-ink-they-are-2248273.html
The AWESOME people of Mass really put a dent in our inventory! Thank you to each and every one of you who stopped by the booth! Winged Heart is about to disappear so now is your chance to score this very limited edition tee before they are gone!
