20070214 Westminster tattoo parlor ban draws heat

Westminster tattoo parlor ban draws heat

Writing for the Baltimore Examiner, Kelsey Volkmann has an article in the February 14th, 2007 edition of the paper on the recent Westminster Common Council vote to ban tattoo parlors in Westminster.

I totally agree with Lori Graham and Stan Ruchlewicz, especially when one considers all the empty store fronts in Westminster of the last year or so…

Kelsey Volkmann, The Examiner, Feb 14, 2007 3:00 AM

http://www.examiner.com/a-564423~Westminster_tattoo_parlor_ban_draws_heat.html

Westminster - Critics lambasted Westminster’s new ban on downtown tattoo shops as anti-business.

“Restricting the types of businesses that can move downtown makes no sense to me,” said Lori Graham, the sole member of the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission to vote against the ban. Graham is president of the Greater Westminster Development Corp., a nonprofit that works to stimulate economic development.

[…]

… Stan Ruchlewicz, Westminster’s economic development administrator, said he wants to attract “cool shops that are youth-oriented because that’s where the market is.”

“What we need is to get some shops that people will come shop through the generations,” he said. “It’s our comic book and skateboard shops that are keeping downtown alive. By allowing tattoo parlors out on the highway, you have youth shopping out on the highway.”

Read the entire article here.