St. Pete commission advances plan for medical tattoos • St Pete Catalyst

Medical tattooing companies would change into extra extensively obtainable in St. Petersburg underneath a proposed modification to the town’s land growth laws.

The Improvement Overview Fee voted unanimously Tuesday to advocate the Metropolis Council approve the modification, which might differentiate conventional tattoo companies from “paramedical tattooing” and permit medical tattooing in all districts the place medical workplace makes use of are allowed.

The modification would outline medical tattooing as beauty tattoos or micropigmentation which assist to camouflage scars, burns, birthmarks or different pores and skin imperfections ensuing from surgical procedures, accidents or medical situations, together with tattoo removing. It doesn’t embrace tattoos for the only real function of physique ornament or artwork, metropolis planner Britton Wilson informed DRC members.

Present metropolis laws don’t make a distinction between conventional physique artwork tattooing and paramedical tattooing. Physique artwork tattooing companies are categorized as a “service institution,” together with laundromats, dry cleansing and varied restore companies and are restricted to sure zoning districts, underneath present guidelines.

The change was proposed by Emily Hedrick, who works within the medical tattooing business.

“One of many huge issues with together with paramedical tattooing within the service institution [category] is it prevents cosmetic surgery workplaces, ones that I work intently with, from doing these companies on breast most cancers survivors, on burn victims. Saying a consumer can solely obtain these companies in a tattoo parlor doesn’t make sense the best way the business is shifting now,” Hendrick informed the DRC. “On the beauty aspect, these companies primarily are achieved in salons, spas, medical day spas. It’s not a lot a service achieved in tattoo parlors anymore. As a result of these companies are handled like a medical process, we  solely see one consumer at a time. Purchasers undergo a vetting course of. These procedures are a whole lot of {dollars} and plenty of instances they’re coated by insurance coverage.”

Hedrick created a change.org petition and there are nearly 1,500 signatures in assist of the proposed change.

The proposal additionally has the backing of Dr. Robert Rehnke, a St. Petersburg plastic surgeon who takes care of ladies who’ve undergone mastectomies for breast most cancers. Paramedical tattooing is a vital adjunct to surgical breast reconstruction, Rehnke wrote in a letter advocating for the change in land use guidelines.

Some DRC commissioners puzzled if the change would “open the floodgates” and permit tattoo parlors that do physique artwork tattooing to find in districts the place medical workplaces are allowed. That wouldn’t occur, metropolis workers stated. Whereas tattoo studios nonetheless might do paramedical tattooing underneath the change, they must do one hundred pc paramedical tattooing to find in a medical workplace district, workers stated.

Improvement Overview Fee members discovered the modification was in keeping with the town’s Complete Plan and voted unanimously to endorse it. A Metropolis Council listening to has not but been scheduled.