The Heber City Planning Commission discussed ideas for the future of tattoo shops at its meeting March 25. The conversation comes after tattoo artist Oakley Franklin asked city leaders to rethink the ban on the businesses earlier this winter.
Heber Planning Director Tony Kohler explained tattoo shops have been specifically prohibited in the city since 2022, when a consultant hired by the city to rewrite all the code recommended the change.
“The concern that people have, I think, is that vision of nothing but pawn shops and the dregs of society, if you will,” Kohler said.
He said there were different reasons for the various bans on check-cashing businesses, massage businesses, vape shops and more.
“For example, the smoke and vape was a health issue,” he said. “Like, ‘Hey, let’s see what we can do to minimize access...’”
“Corrupting the youth of America and Heber City,” a planning commissioner cut in.
“Exactly,” Kohler said.
Most of the prohibitions, according to Kohler, were an attempt to ensure downtown businesses were respectable. But he said the code went too far.
There’s one tattoo shop in the city with a business license – Trigger Happy Tattoo, which received a license in 2017 and was grandfathered in.
Planner Jacob Roberts said tattoo artists could apply for a business license to operate at home, but that kind of body art was less regulated.
“So, a body art facility would receive a business license from the city if they applied for that,” he said. “Now, they wouldn’t get permitted by the health department.”
Roberts said if Heber City opts to allow tattoo shops going forward, it needs to define what counts as body art.
“A lot of things are counted as a tattoo that you may not think of: permanent makeup, micro-blading, getting our eyebrows done,” he said. “Things that are done on the regular in every salon in town are technically counted as tattoos.”
He said nearby cities, including Payson and Provo, allow or are moving toward allowing tattoo businesses in their commercial zones. Lehi, meanwhile, requires body art at the back of salons and similar businesses, rather than being standalone tattoo shops.
Several planning commissioners said they’re in favor of allowing tattoo businesses in all commercial zones.
Kohler said a public hearing about the possible code change will be scheduled for next month.
