- Power to the people tattoo how to#
- Power to the people tattoo update#
- Power to the people tattoo free#
An entrepreneur’s right to earn a living is implicated just as much whether she’s in the business of tattooing, preparing food, or providing massage therapy. There is no principled justification for treating some constitutional rights as second-class. For example, Redding’s provisions that now allow tattoo businesses downtown still prohibit massage businesses. But if the business is non-expressive-like a massage therapy studio or a food truck-then it has almost no protections against arbitrary restrictions. If a business is expressive-like tattooing-then it enjoys robust constitutional protection with a heavy burden on the government to justify restrictions on the business’s operations. The reason Delia was able to fight back so successfully is simply that courts recognize greater constitutional protections for speech than for the right to earn a living. Delia’s perseverance and determination paid off.īut she would enjoy only a shadow of those constitutional protections if she wanted to open most any other type of business. With the city’s assurances, Shasta County proceeded to issue an updated permit authorizing Velvet Orange to provide tattoo services as well as body piercing.
Power to the people tattoo update#
Upon being reminded of the First Amendment’s protections for tattooing and the business of tattooing, Redding notified Delia that it would update its downtown zoning plan to remove the restriction on tattoo businesses, with the amendments finally being enacted in February 2022. Indeed, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held in 2010 that tattooing, as well as the business of tattooing, is a purely expressive activity fully protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution, and that a total ban on tattooing is not a reasonable restriction on speech. With the help of Pacific Legal Foundation, in September of 2021 Delia sent the City of Redding and Shasta County letters pointing out the First Amendment problem with arbitrarily banning tattoo businesses in downtown Redding. Worse still, she could see another tattoo studio from the corner of her street just beyond the prohibited zone.ĭelia refused to let this news stop her. Bewilderingly, Delia’s studio was located a mere block within the downtown no-tattoo zone. The news was upsetting and confusing-an existing tattoo studio already operated in the center of downtown Redding. Because the city had recently enacted a prohibition on tattooing in the downtown area, the inspector informed Delia that the county could only issue a permit for body piercing. Combining her talents with her friend and former boss Shar, Delia found an ideal location in downtown Redding and applied for the required health and safety permits for a new body art studio.Įven though the county’s health inspection of the studio found it to be flawless, the county denied Delia a permit to tattoo. As a result, Delia set her sights on opening her own studio once the pandemic improved. With the arrival of COVID-19, the shop she trained in was forced to close. With her new skills in hand, Delia began thinking about her next move.Īgain, however, fate had other plans.
Power to the people tattoo how to#
After apprenticing for over a year and a half, Delia had mastered proper techniques and safe practices, and had learned how to run a business. It was then that she realized she wanted to become a tattoo artist.Įven though she was still working full-time at the restaurant, she found a local body artist willing to train her as a piercing apprentice, teaching her the ins and outs of body art. Surviving a life-changing disaster was bad enough on its own, but even working full-time, she was barely making ends meet as a server.Īs she contemplated her future, Delia thought back to college, where she studied cultural anthropology and was captivated to learn that over millennia, cultures throughout the world have practiced body art to record events and express themselves. Delia then bounced between a Walmart parking lot, friends’ couches, and a motel before moving to Redding, California to start over.Īfter arriving in Redding, Delia found work in a restaurant and started rebuilding her life.
She lost everything she owned in the Camp Fire of 2018 except for her dog, her truck, and the clothes on her back. The last few years haven’t been easy for Delia. However, her story highlights the uneven-some would say arbitrary-constitutional protections enjoyed by some entrepreneurs but not others.
Power to the people tattoo free#
California tattoo artist Delia Fields is finally free to do what she loves.
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