Tattooing the Beach
Josh Kimbrell, Jeremy Hartland, Jeff Thielman and Fletcher Dragge prepare to help tattoo Hermosa. Photo 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. A customer sports a Japanese mask inked by Jeff Thielman. 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…
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