Health board revokes tattoo parlor’s permit

KATE LIEBERS

Staff Writer

The Delaware Gen­eral Health District’s Board of Health on Wednes­day revoked a Delaware tat­too parlor’s busi­ness per­mit fol­low­ing a com­plaint that minors received body pierc­ings there with­out parental consent.

The board’s 6–1 vote allows the Fantasy’s of the Flesh tat­too par­lor at 46 E. Win­ter St. to reap­ply for a new per­mit on March 1.

How­ever, while most health per­mits are han­dled by the Delaware Gen­eral Health Dis­trict staff, health com­mis­sioner Frances Vev­erka said any per­mit sub­mis­sion by tat­too par­lor owner Jason Parks would likely call for the board’s review.

Speak­ing on behalf of the dis­trict staff, Envi­ron­men­tal Health Direc­tor Steve Burke said that Parks oper­ated the tat­too par­lor while “know­ingly vio­lat­ing” state laws — par­tic­u­larly those that require client and artist records to be prop­erly kept.

Stephanie DeGe­naro, pro­gram man­ager of food pro­tec­tion and pub­lic safety, said Parks had been made aware of pre­vi­ous health code vio­la­tions dur­ing a Jan. 18 inspection.

The inspec­tion revealed a “severe lack of records,” said DeGe­naro. Exam­ples of infor­ma­tion miss­ing from reports included the client’s name, age, the artist’s name, details about the work per­formed, and parental con­sent if the client was a minor.

Days after the inspec­tion, the dis­trict received com­plaints that minors were pierced with­out parental con­sent. The pierc­ings occurred four days before and two days after Parks was made aware of his record-keeping vio­la­tions, DeGe­naro said.

Since Parks’s records were so poorly kept, the par­lor could not prove they were abid­ing by state law, DeGe­naro said.

Burke con­cluded that because Parks did not change his prac­tices as advised, his oper­a­tion could be con­sid­ered “a threat to pub­lic health.”

A video was sub­mit­ted to the board as evi­dence that a juve­nile was pierced.

Accord­ing to Vev­erka, the video showed Parks, or some­one who resem­bles Parks, was present dur­ing the minor’s piercing.

A crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion into the inci­dent is ongo­ing, and Parks faces charges of con­tribut­ing to the unruli­ness of a child and per­form­ing a pro­ce­dure on a minor with­out guardian con­sent. The two minors also face mis­de­meanor charges of unruliness.

The crim­i­nal charges, how­ever, were not the focus of the board’s hear­ing, and Vev­erka declined to answer whether Parks could be seen con­duct­ing the pierc­ing himself.

Prior to the board’s deci­sion, Parks’ attor­ney, David Lowther, had pro­posed an alter­na­tive penalty: an agree­ment that Parks is not to tat­too any­one under 18 years old, even if there is con­firmed parental con­sent, and to not per­form any pierc­ings until the board reverses the decision.

His pro­posal also included that the par­lor would undergo a 10– to 14-day sus­pen­sion, after which Parks would use more com­plex client release forms and hire a clerk specif­i­cally to main­tain the paperwork.

If any of these items were vio­lated, Parks would accept imme­di­ate sus­pen­sion or other board action, Lowther said.

“Revo­ca­tion would be some­what dras­tic, when we have taken steps to gain com­pli­ance,” said Lowther.

He described Parks as new to the tat­too busi­ness and new to busi­ness own­er­ship in gen­eral. He asked that the board give Parks the oppor­tu­nity to con­tinue his business.

Board mem­bers, how­ever, said that the trust nec­es­sary for such an agree­ment to work had already been lost.

Vev­erka said the vio­la­tion that was reported days after Parks’ inspec­tion shows that Parks did not begin to com­ply with the codes until the police got involved.

She said there would be “sus­pi­cion to cred­i­bil­ity as to what will be done in the future.”

Prior to the board’s deci­sion, board mem­ber Charles Reiner moved to sus­pend the parlor’s per­mit for two months. The motion was not sec­onded. Board mem­ber Rebecca Kidd sub­mit­ted the dis­sent­ing vote to revoke the per­mit and declined fur­ther comment.

The mother of the pierced juve­nile, who wished to remain anony­mous to pro­tect her daughter’s iden­tity, had a mixed reac­tion to the verdict.

“I guess I’m glad that it’s at least a tem­po­rary close down, maybe a lit­tle dis­ap­pointed that they could pos­si­bly reopen the busi­ness,” she said.

“Hon­estly, I hate the thought of clos­ing down any busi­ness. I know that they work hard to get the busi­ness grow­ing, but you also have to play by the rules,” she said.

Prior to the hear­ing, she said she believed that the par­lor had the rep­u­ta­tion of serv­ing minors with­out parental consent.

“I know my daugh­ter and the other girl aren’t the only ones (who were pierced as minors),” she said.

“Any­body that would do some­thing to a minor with­out parental con­sent should get in some kind of trouble.”

Posted by Kate Liebers on Feb 9 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.