Key West Ink - Evaporating

After a seemingly endless battle and a lot of positive noise from all kinds of officials and regular Key West folk, it appears all is far from well on Duval Street.

We have skanky ex strippers, openly selling themselves in storefronts, T-shirt shops with some of the most offensive logos ever seen, front and central, some very seedy looking stores with 9 foot long triple bladed swords and throwing stars happily marketed alongside coke bullets and a wide assortment of drug scales, and of course the reason why the Navy has always loved our little bit o' paradise , more actual strip clubs per capita than downtown Bangkok. OK, so I exaggerate. A bit.

What we do not have, and it seems are unlikely to ever have, are tattoo shops. You can watch a zit faced coke whore push her nasty goods in your face whilst you down as much liquor as you can handle, but should you choose to have said ho's face permanently memorialized on your back.. you have to drive 3 miles to Stock Island.

From The Keynoter

After spending $500,000 to prepare his tattoo parlor, paying a down payment of $260,000 on a $1.4 million mortgage and attending city workshop after city workshop, Key West Ink owner Jim McAlhany is taking his case to a judge.

“Maybe I should turn it into a T-shirt shop,” McAlhany mused. “I could probably get an ordinance for that.”

A 43-year-old city ban prohibits tattoo shops in Key West proper and the City Commission has been trying to craft an ordinance lifting the ban.

But McAlhany, along other hopeful tattoo-parlor owners, is tired of waiting and pressing forward with a lawsuit he previously put on hold.

It alleges the ban is unconstitutional, a violation of First Amendment rights.

A subpoena has been issued to city Planning Director Gail Kenson to appear before Monroe County Judge Mark Jones at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday with “all documents” relating to her work on the tattoo-parlor ordinance, including e-mails, staff reports, draft ordinances and communications with others.

The owners of Paradise Tattoo, which has operated on Stock Island for 15 years, filed a similar complaint and consolidated their lawsuit with Key West Ink's. Both have shops on Duval waiting to open, Key West Ink at 717 Duval and Paradise Tattoo at 627. Paradise owner Doreen Eppy sells merchandise out of her shop.

Attorney Wayne Larue Smith represents Key West Ink, Jerry Coleman represents Paradise and Nathan Eden is helping Goldie's Southernmost Tattoo Parlor on Stock Island, which has not sued.

Commissioner Bill Verge, whose district lies where the shops would go, doesn't see any ruling happening Tuesday.

“You can only work on it so fast,” Verge said. “I can't imagine Judge Jones ruling on anything until we vote on the ordinance.”

But McAlhany said the suit has nothing to do with the city, rather the “unconstitutional ordinance” itself, which was enacted to keep U.S. Navy personnel from getting tattoos in the 1960s, when there weren't the same sanitation measures there are today.

McAlhany, who said he has 1,500 clients waiting for tattoos from his shop, said he bought his Duval shop before the commission passed an ordinance because most city officials told him it would pass, and in a short time period.

“I believe that if the judge rules in line with the Constitution, it should then will be all right.”