A citizens group has opened a new legal battle against tattoo parlors in Hermosa Beach, and in a separate action the city’s Planning Commission took a first step toward tighter restrictions on the parlors, including 9 p.m. closing times, banning them near parks and schools, and forbidding them to perform body piercing.
The lawsuit by Citizens United, which includes some neighbors of a tattoo parlor soon to open at Hermosa Avenue and Eighth Street, aims to overturn an ordinance allowing tattoo parlors, which came after a federal appeals court struck down a citywide ban as unconstitutional.
Superior Court Judge James Chalfant last Thursday refused to issue a temporary restraining order halting the ordinance, in the lawsuit’s opening salvo.
Hany Fangary, a member of the citizens group, saw a silver lining in the defeat of the restraining order.
“I’m disappointed about the results, but the judge said if [Citizens United prevails], the tattoo places can be closed down,” Fangary said. “Everybody got the impression that once they are open, you throw up your hands and say, what can you do? But that’s not the case.”
City Attorney Michael Jenkins called the lawsuit “regrettable.”
“The City Council knows that some residents are frustrated by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that tattoo studios are protected by the Constitution and cannot be banned. The city has grappled with the implications of the court decision and developed reasonable restrictions that protect Hermosa Beach from the proliferation or concentration of tattoo studios,” Jenkins said in a prepared statement.
“The city has worked with the community to weigh its options and develop tattoo parlor regulations that respect the needs of residents while still adhering to the court’s mandate to permit tattoo studios in Hermosa Beach. It is regrettable this group chose to file a lawsuit. We encourage them to join the City Council and the city’s staff in the ongoing dialogue about how to most effectively regulate tattoo studios in Hermosa Beach,” Jenkins said.
The lawsuit contends that city officials failed to adequately notify residents about public meetings on the tattoo issue, and failed to have the tattoo ordinance adequately vetted by the city Planning Commission, in violation of state law and the Hermosa municipal code, Fangary said.
Restrictions
The Planning Commission on Tuesday tentatively agreed to ask the City Council to add more restrictions to the tattoo parlor ordinance it passed in the wake of the Appeals Court decision.
The council had taken the unusual step of asking for a commission review of its own ordinance, after parlor opponents begged the council for further restrictions on the businesses.
The commission’s recommendations, if adopted by the council, could not take effect for about three months, officials said.
Some opponents had asked the commission for still broader restrictions, including capping the number of allowed tattoo parlors at four.
One parlor has opened and three have received permits to open, and city official say a total of seven could exist in the city under the council’s ordinance. The ordinance restricts the parlors from standing within 1,500 feet of each other in the Pier Plaza-Hermosa Avenue commercial area, and more than 1,000 feet of each other along the Aviation Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway commercial corridors.
One resident asked the commission if Hermosa wants to be known as “tattoo central,” and presaged a decline in property values and the spectacle of “needles littering our streets.”
Greg Maffei, a real estate broker and 22-year resident, said he emailed members of South Bay and Palos Verdes real estate associations and quickly got 28 responses. All of the respondents said it would be more difficult to market a home next to a tattoo parlor, 92 percent saying the sale price would be lower and 77 percent saying the home would take longer to sell.
Maffei joined other tattoo parlor critics in urging the commission to act boldly in the face of the federal appeals court ruling.
“Please, let’s not be afraid of getting sued, let’s set some boundaries,” he said.
Gene Smith, a partner with Shane McColgan in the Hermosa Avenue parlor soon to open, told the commission that many of the objections to his business were prompted by “misunderstanding and misinformation.”
Smith said he lives within four blocks of the Hermosa Avenue location and has daughters in the town’s two public schools. He said the partners signed a long-term lease with their landlord, with a “commitment to have the nicest, most upscale tattoo parlor in the state, if not in North America.”
He said the parlor on the Plaza has been open since December 2010 and has caused no problems.
Commissioner Peter Hoffman said he had been “against tattoo parlors from day one.” But he reminded the parlor opponents of the expensive and failed court fight to uphold the ban, and told staunch opponents “you’re the guys that cost the city $250,000.”
The citywide ban was overturned after tattoo artist Johnny Anderson sued the city.
A three-judge federal appeals court panel ruled that tattoos are a form of “pure speech” protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and Anderson opened his shop on the Pier Plaza. Then another parlor readied to open on Pacific Coast Highway, Smith and McColgan are preparing to open there shop, and a fourth is preparing to open on Aviation Boulevard between Ocean Drive and Prospect Avenue. ER
