ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 19, 1997 TAG: 9701200046
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
Mary Leon was bored one Saturday, so she got a tattoo.
Simple as that, for a 16-year-old with wheels and the determination to have a rainbow on her tummy.
"I wanted one forever, for three or four years," she says, "and then finally, I was sitting around bored one morning and I thought, 'I know what I'll do. I'll get a tattoo.'" It helped that her mom wasn't at home that weekend. So the Staunton River High School student started ringing up her friends, and they all rolled into Roanoke.
"We ended up with a bunch of folks, maybe six," she says. "Every one of us except one was underage."
And they all got tattoos.
Her mom, Leon says, "was not happy."
Two years later, at the wise old age of 18, Leon - now a cook at a restaurant at Smith Mountain Lake - regrets going to the tattoo studio that night. "I should have just waited," she said, although her regrets are more artistic than philosophical. "It's not a good tattoo. It's a jailhouse tattoo. I wish I had a better one."
Tattoos have become the fashion statement of the '90s - instead of adorning merely sailors and biker chicks, tattoos are popping up on movie stars and supermodels.
And, you may have noticed, teen-agers.
"A lot of people I know already had tattoos and their parents didn't know," Leon says. "I think most people get them, hide them from their parents, and don't think about it."
A state legislator from Northern Virginia wants to ink some changes into the state law to try to make it more difficult for teens to get tattoos.
Del. David Brickley, D-Prince William County, has introduced a bill in the General Assembly that would require anyone under age 18 to bring a parent or guardian with them to the tattoo studio to grant permission in writing.
Brickley's proposed law - which may come up for its first committee hearing this week - would impose fines of up to $2,500 and a possible jail term of up to 12 months on anyone who tattoos a minor without parental permission.
"Something as irreversible or as hard to reverse as a tattoo should have some type of minimal age requirement," Brickley says.
Yet the largest tattoo studios in Western Virginia say Brickley's bill won't do much to keep teens from getting tattooed.
Some, such as Ancient Art in Roanoke and Custom Tattoo in Christiansburg, say they don't tattoo kids under any circumstances. "It's a moral issue," says Danny Fowler, owner of Ancient Art. "Kids don't know what socks to wear at 18, much less something they're going to wear the rest of their lives. When you're 40 years old, you don't want to lose out on a $60,000 job because of a $45 childhood mistake."
Others, such as Skin Thrills and Alex's New Tattoo in Roanoke, say they tattoo minors only with parental permission anyway. Randy Horton, manager of Skin Thrills, says he not only makes kids bring a consent form, he always calls the parent to verify the signature. "It's a standard practice followed by the most reputable shops," he says.
In fact, the most common sight at tattoo studios today isn't the teen-ager flashing a fake ID, but the parent who brings in a son or daughter and helps pick out a design. "Today, the way parents raise their kids, they bring them in here at 12, 13 years old," says Fowler at Ancient Art. "We have kids with parental permission come in here, maybe half a dozen a week."
While Brickley's proposed law might not change the way these studios operate, neither would it do much to keep kids from getting tattoos, these tattoo artists say. "When you want one, you're going to get one," says Joe Hegarty, owner of Alex's New Tattoo. "Kids get it in their head and it won't go away."
And if they want one bad enough, they'll figure out a way to get one, he says.
There are plenty of tattoo artists around who don't operate out of a fancy business front. "Nowadays," Fowler says, "you can pick up any tattoo magazine and order a kit." Horton, at Skin Thrills, complains about "the less reputable people, the people who do it out of their homes, which you can't regulate anyway."
Besides, says Leon, kids can always figure out a way around the law. "Making that a law wouldn't change anything," she says.
Just take her case. "I would have found someone to resemble my mom who could have said, 'Yeah, I'm her mom.' Hey, I wanted a tattoo, and I was hellbent to get one - and I got one."
To read House Bill 1636 and check the status of other bills, visit our General Assembly web site at www.roanoke.com. To leave a message for state legislators, call (800)889-0229 between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. weekdays.
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: CINDY PINKSTON STAFF. Mary Leon, 18, got this rainbowby CNBtattoo without her parents' permission when she was 16. The Bedford
County teen-ager now regrets the specific tattoo, but for artistic
reasons only. color. Graphic: Chart: The General Assembly. KEYWORDS: MGR GENERAL ASSEMBLTY 1997