Just three months after a federal appeals court ruled that the U.S. Constitution forbids Hermosa Beach from banning tattoo parlors, one shop is open and a second is in the works, with Pennywise guitarist and local punk rock icon Fletcher Dragge among the artists laying on the ink.
And there might be more to follow. About 10 additional tattoo artists have joined a waiting list to work their way through the governmental permitting process for shops in Hermosa commercial districts, although the city can hold no more than four or five tattoo shops in total, because of distance requirements between them.
The court ruling opens the door to tattoo shops throughout the U.S., and copies of the ruling are being waved in city halls far and wide, but Hermosa, the legal test case, appears to be the local center of tattoo interest.
Fresh off his triumphant four-year legal battle with the city, Johnny Anderson of Redondo Beach last month began quietly imbedding art into human skin at his Hermosa Tattoo Company on the seaside Pier Plaza.
Meanwhile, Third Street Tattoo aims to open soon on Pacific Coast Highway, with established area artists Jeff Thielman of Ship Shape Tattoo in San Pedro and Josh Kimbrell joined by Dragge, who is a partner in the business and was quick to say his skill is not as advanced as that of his compatriots.
“I’m an aspiring tattoo artist and these guys are real tattoo artists,” he said.
Tattoo nation
Throughout his legal battle, Anderson contended that the image of tattoos has moved from an old stereotype of shady types and drunken sailors into the mainstream, with ever larger numbers of people wearing colorful decorations or personal statements on their arms, ankles, torsos and elsewhere.
While much smaller numbers of people sport tattoos that can’t easily be hidden – the “job killers” on knuckles, forearms and necks – the artists at the coming PCH shop agree that tattoos have become as mainstream as the pieces on actress Angelina Jolie’s arms, stomach, shoulder, back and hand, and basketball superstar LeBron James’ arms, back, chest, stomach and legs.
Reality TV has reinforced the mainstream dimension of tattoo art, said Thielman, Kimbrell and Dragge.
“Now it’s rich people,” Thielman said.
“It’s rich, pretty people,” Dragge added.
Dragge also pointed out tattoos on several Hermosa police officers, and on a traditionally respected and often tatted demographic, “people in the armed services who serve the country.”
“You can’t say it’s just for the gangsters and the criminals any more. People are paying $20,000 for back pieces. Some of the greatest artists are working in tattoos, in my opinion,” he said.
Life map
While Thielman and Kimbrell have both inked professionally for years, Dragge said he has “a lot to learn” as an inker.
“I’ve done about 50 of them, just in the recording studio in downtime or whatever, for people who wanted to get tatted or were willing to let me practice on them,” he said. “I honed my skills on willing victims.”
The tattoos he wears on his own imposing frame are not so much works of art as forms of self-expression, he said, including at least one he applied himself.
“They’ve all got some meaning, but I wouldn’t say I went for the art,” he said. “I would draw one on a napkin and the artist would say ‘Really, you really want that?’”
Dragge’s tattoos form “a chronological map” of his life and the effect of people important to him.
“I’ve got Kristian’s name blasted across both forearms,” said Dragge, referring to his brother, a punk rock guitarist and veteran of the Smut Peddlers, who died in 2009, at age 39. “I look at them every day and think of him.”
Dragge’s wrist bears the initials of original Pennywise bassist Jason Thirsk, and a pirate skull/compass design commemorates the 20th anniversary of the band.
A self-administered tattoo resembles a line of stitches from Dragge’s middle finger up his arm to his chest. It was originally an unadorned line, without the cross-hatches. To explain the tattoo would involve “a long, long, long story,” but it can be summarized as “kind of like, F**k death.”
“People say tattoos are addictive. They’re not really addictive, but once you get used to the idea of having one, you keep getting more ideas,” Dragge said.
“I guess a lot of people can’t handle the idea of permanence,” he said. “Everyone wakes up with tattoo remorse, believe me. The line from my middle finger up my arm to my chest – you know when you wake up and say ‘Thank God that was a dream,’ but it wasn’t a dream? But then you’re glad it’s there.”
“For the newcomer, once you get over the shock, you have a lot of pride in them,” he said.
“My mom at 75 wants to get tattooed,” Dragge said. “She wants me to ink her up, maybe a tribute to my brother and my dad, because they’re both gone.”
Jailhouse rock
Dragge recalled a particular case of tattoo remorse, or tattoo surprise, back when he was about 19 years old and found himself waking up one morning in a shop, probably in Long Beach, with “F**K OFF” inked in big block letters the length of his back.
The recollection of the night before was clear enough. A friend had tried to talk him out of it.
“When I had the F he said, ‘Just put a D after it and it’ll be your initials,’” Dragge recalled. “He was saying ‘Take a look in the mirror, man, do you know how this looks?’”
Dragge said he got that tattoo when he was “young and dumb and mad at the world.”
That piece of his map went with him one night about 17 years ago, when a high-speed chase with officers of the law landed him in the county lock-up, where he would wind up serving a brief sentence. Dragge was being printed, deloused and generally processed in, when the hours-long process slowed to a halt as he and a vast roomful of other men sat quietly waiting for x-rays to check for tuberculosis. As they sat, deputies hovered about.
“It was total silence, and a deputy near me said, ‘What are you in for?’” Dragge recalled. “I looked around and I said, ‘Are you talking to me?’ and he said ‘Yeah, are you in for murder?’ I said ‘No,’ and he said, ‘You mean you didn’t kill the motherf**ker who put that on your back?’”
That broke the tension, and the other men began sounding off about the distinctive tattoo, in a fraternal tone, judging from Dragge’s impression of the general chatter.
Clearing hurdles
Third Street Tattoo will be located on the 300 block of PCH, within the 46-year-old Hermosa Design Center furniture store, which is being remodeled to include a new coffee lounge with beans from Kona, Hawaii as well. Dragge is partners in the tattoo shop with Jeremy Hartland, who will also run the furniture store as his grandfather, Luie Kona, retires after decades in the business.
Third Street Tattoo has secured a business license and county Health Department certifications for the shop, and will not require a conditional use permit from the city to do business. So with a few more hurdles to clear, the shop is nearly set. The building already has two front doors, so one will open into the furniture store and coffee lounge, and the other will open into the tattoo studio.
Style points
Thielman, a Hermosa native, began tattooing professionally in 1994. While he is stylistically versatile, he enjoys working in the American traditional style characterized by bold clean lines and elements of solid color; and the fluid, flowers-and-dragons style of Japanese traditional.
Asked to identify a favorite tattoo on his own body, Thielman nodded to the letters of “Just Livn” across his knuckles.
Kimbrell started inking professionally about 13 years ago, worked at Big Daddy’s in Harbor City and opened the Old Star shop in Bakersfield before making his way back to the South Bay area.
“I work in all styles. I do everything,” he said, including American traditional and portraiture, in which someone’s image in a photograph is tattooed onto someone else’s body.
Another favorite piece on his body is a bee on his right knee.
Inking the path
Third Street Tattoo credited Anderson with tenacity in his fight for the right to tattoo, which he won when the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal ruled that a city ban violated free speech provisions of the Constitution.
“He definitely led the parade,” Thielman said.
The appeals court “ruled that tattooing is pure speech, including having a tattoo, applying a tattoo, or running a tattoo business,” Anderson’s attorney Robert Moest said at the time. “That’s at the heart of the First Amendment, like having a printing press, or a newspaper, or anything else.”
The City Council bowed to the courts, and adopted an ordinance allowing tattoo shops in commercial areas, as long as they are at least 1,000 feet apart on the Pier Plaza or parts of Hermosa Avenue, or at least 1,500 feet apart on PCH and Aviation Boulevard.
Last week on an upstairs corner of the Loreto Plaza – a little western inlet area of the larger Pier Plaza – Anderson was sitting inside his Hermosa Tattoo Company, adding a flower to the dragon-tattooed arm of a 32-year-old man from Redondo. Six other artists also work at Anderson’s four tattooing stations.
His nickname is Johnny 2/3, for the mixture black into colors that marks his work.
“A lot of locals have come by, doing the well-wishing thing,” Anderson said as rockabilly played quietly on the box, and the chrome colored tattoo machine in his right hand emitted a buzzing, dentist-drill drone. On a shiny red shelf above his station stood statuettes of a Tiki figure, the hotrod character Rat Fink and family pictures, all beneath a contemplative portrait of Jesus.
Anderson said tattoo artists far and wide have benefitted from his successful lawsuit.
“I’ve gotten emails from people around the country who walked into their city with a copy of that ruling,” he said. “The lawsuit was like a game changer in that.”
The shop in Hermosa affords the father of three a short drive to work from his digs in Redondo, although he still pilots his’65 Chevy truck up to the Gardena shop a couple of days a week.
Up on PCH, Dragge and his partners looked forward to joining in.
“I’m stoked that Hermosa is allowing this. A lot of people have been waiting for it,” he said.
A party to celebrate the opening of Hermosa Tattoo Company will be held at 6 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 15 at the Mint Salon, 69 14th St., with Bad Seeds Moi and Sean. ER
