Zoning Regs Thwart Tattoo Artist

Wes Fortier has to drive 40 minutes from home to do his job — giving people tattoos.

It’s not for lack of business in Hamden that he drives so far; it’s because Hamden’s zoning regulations make it tough to do his job there.

Fortier has been operating Burning Hearts Tattoo Company in Waterbury since 2015, and has been working as a tattoo artist in Waterbury since 2010.

Before taking over the place he now operates, he looked into opening a parlor closer to home, in Hamden. It would not be so simple, he discovered.

Hamden’s zoning regulations classify tattoo parlors as ​“adult personal service businesses,” which also include ​“massage parlors, exotic rubs, modeling studios, body painting studios,” and ​“wrestling studios and individual theatrical performances.” Those businesses are all regulated under the ​“adult oriented establishments” section of the town’s zoning regulations, alongside strip clubs, sex shops, and other businesses selling sexual goods and services.

Unlike other types of establishments, the zoning regulations only permit businesses classified under the ​“adult oriented establishments” section in manufacturing (M) zones. M zones are usually home to warehouses or other industrial-type buildings, and there are not many of them in town. Most of the M‑zoned properties are along State Street or Sherman Avenue. There are also smaller pockets of M zones in southern Hamden, along Pine Rock Avenue, next to the Farmington Canal Trail just north of Morse Street, and along a small portion of Leeder Hill Drive.

Businesses that must open in M zones do not have the option to open along Dixwell or Whitney Avenues, where most of the town’s customer-oriented businesses are, and where they can be seen by passersby.

A few years ago, when he looked into opening in Hamden, Fortier didn’t try to push forward after finding out about the regulation. He got an opportunity to take over the place he now operates in Waterbury; trying to open in Hamden seemed too much of a hassle.

Now he’s reconsidering.

At the beginning of 2019, he got in touch with town officials again to begin looking for a place. He said he wants to be able to work closer to home, rather than having to drive 40 minutes each way. His kids play sports in Hamden; he has to miss a lot of their games because of the commute.

If he wanted to open a bar or a liquor store, also businesses catered exclusively toward adults, he could in most parts of town. But since he wants to give tattoos, it’s much harder, though perhaps safer.

“I’m not sending someone home at 2 a.m. intoxicated,” he pointed out.

The clientele of tattoo parlors, and public opinion about them, have changed drastically over the course of the last decade, he noted. He said he tattoos all sorts of people — cops, members of the military, nurses, teachers, young people, and women as old as 70 who never got a tattoo because their husbands wouldn’t have approved, but are now widows and are free to do so.

If Fortier were to try to open a tattoo parlor in Hamden, he would have a few choices. He could try to open in an M zone, which would significantly limit his choices and make it tough to get business. He would have to be the only business in the building, and he would be relegated to industrial parcels where people wouldn’t necessarily see him from the road.

He could try to seek a variance on the zoning regulations from the Zoning Board of Appeals, but would have to prove a hardship in order to do so.

Or, he could try to get the Planning and Zoning Commission to change the regulations to be more favorable to tattoo parlors, or to change a parcel he has in mind to an M zone.

One site he has in mind, for example, is the lot with the Space Ballroom off of Treadwell Street. People going to the Space would see it. Many of the units appear to be vacant. But it is zoned T‑4.

The commission plans to discuss tattoo parlors at its next meeting. Fortier should have some support from town officials.

“I think that Wes should be able to open his business pretty much wherever he wants,” said Economic Development Director Dale Kroop. ​“I’m definitely on Wes’s side on this.”

The Origin Story

If Fortier is able to open a tattoo parlor in Hamden, his would be the third in the town. And the other two are not in M zones, but rather in regular commercial zones along Whitney and Dixwell Avenues.

Both opened before tattoo parlors were added to the ​“adult oriented establishments” section of the town’s zoning regulations. Up until 2010, tattoo parlors were not subject to any specific regulations. In 2010, the regulations changed, relegating them to M zones.

As with many zoning regulations, the change came about because of pressure from residents.

A Touch of Color Tattoo and Piercing has been operating on Dixwell for over 20 years, according to its website. Lovecraft, on the other hand, is newer. It opened in 2004 on Whitney in the West Woods neighborhood.

For some, it was not welcome. A few years after it opened, when the Planning and Zoning Commission was rewriting its zoning regulations, neighbors lobbied the commission to restrict tattoo parlors.

“Basically there’s a lot of people who don’t want a tattoo parlor in the neighborhood,” said Joe McDonagh, a West Woods resident and vice chair of the Planning and Zoning Commission.

The rule stayed on the books for a decade. Now, Fortier has opened the subject again, and the commission may reconsider.

“Rap Studios,” ​“Sodomy,” And ​“Juice Bars”

The clause that includes tattoo parlors among adult oriented businesses is not the only one in that section of the regulations that has the potential to turn heads.

The ​“adult oriented establishments” section was added to the zoning regulations in 1999, said Town Planner Dan Kops, in a window of time in which he was not working in the town.

The section goes into great detail about the various permutations of ​“adult” businesses that are restricted to M zones. It was added after an adult video store called Video Liquidators opened on State Street in 1992.

“That resulted in those six to ten pages of outrageousness,” said McDonagh, referring to the adult oriented establishments section of the zoning regulations.

In a recent Facebook post, Fortier pointed out one of the rather surprising parts of the regulations.

The regulations define ​“adult-oriented entertainment” as any number of businesses like adult bookstores, video arcades, sex shops, and other businesses selling some type of sexual or erotic service or good. The subsection describes the layout of these businesses, and then adds on a peculiar sentence at the end.

“An ​‘Adult-Oriented Establishment’ further includes, without limitation, premises that are so physically arranged as above and are used as such whether advertised or represented as an adult entertainment studio, rap studio, exotic dance studio, encounter studio, sensitivity studio, modeling studio, juice bar or other term of like import,” the clause reads.

That is, any business that provides the services of a strip club or adult bookstore, but calls itself an ​“entertainment studio” or ​“rap studio,” is still restricted.

Though the section does not appear to restrict studios where rap music is recorded, but rather sex shops or strip clubs that call themselves rap studios, the inclusion of rap studios on that list still has a rather sinister dimension. The zoning regulations do not mention any other type of music business or studio in any section. The regulations associate rap, a traditionally black art form, with strip clubs and sex shops, which they relegate to hidden plots of land that are less desirable for businesses trying to attract customers.

In his Facebook post, Fortier pointed out the inclusion of rap studios on that list. But there’s more that might turn heads.

No one who spoke with the Independent could offer any insight into what ​“juice bars” are doing on a list of businesses that might actually double as sex shops or strip clubs.

The regulations also include a few definitions that would likely not be included today. ​“Specified sexual activities” that are restricted for minors, and that are portrayed in these businesses, are defined as ​“human genitals in a state of sexual stimulation or arousal; acts of human masturbation, sexual intercourse, or sodomy; and fondling or erotic touching of human genitals, pubic region, buttocks or female breasts.”

The word ​“sodomy” is included two other times in the regulations.

“Adult cabarets” are defined as businesses that serve food and/or alcohol and feature ​“nude and/or partially nude dancers, go-go dancers, exotic dancers, strippers, male or female impersonators, or similar entertainers, and from which minors are excluded by virtue of age.”

“Male or female impersonators” likely refers to drag performers. Including the term in the adult-oriented businesses section restricts drag performances, and could be considered a form of discrimination against the LGBTQ community.

The Planning and Zoning Commission passed its new Plan of Conservation and Development (POCD) last year. POCDs are usually accompanied by changes to zoning regulations, and the commission will soon start to overhaul its regulations. Mayor Curt Leng said after his reelection this fall that those changes would be one of his priorities this term.