141 U.S. Laws Regulating Tattooing
Description
This article is from the Tattoo FAQ, by Stan Schwarz with numerous contributions by others.
141 U.S. Laws Regulating Tattooing
Where available, I have included the information about the laws
regarding tattooing for that state. Note that some states leave this up
to the cities or municipalities. This information should only be used
for unofficial information purposes, and may change by each legislative
session--for accurate and up-to-date information regarding the laws of
your area, contact a professional tattoo shop or the department of
public health.
The laws regarding tattooing differ as greatly as there are states in
the U.S. While a handful serve as model states for regulations, most are
completely unregulated, with the exception of some laws on the minimum
allowable age. There is no federal legislation regarding tattooing.
To complicate things however, many states leave these regulations up to
the cities, counties and municipalities. In addition, changes or
amendments to existing laws crop up regularly.
BrYan Westbrook <bryan.westbrook@panda.org> researched US laws by
contacting all 50 states. His exhaustive work is greatly appreciated,
and is posted at the beginning section of each US state. Unless
otherwise noted, the information is current as of 1994. If YOUR state
changes its laws, please contact me.
The 11 states in the forefront of regulation are: Alaska, Arkansas,
Hawaii, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Massachussetts, Oregon, Rhode Island,
South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, and West Virginia.
The 34 states that are not regulated are: Alabama, Arizona, California,
Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana,
Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana,
Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North
Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia,
Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
The two states that ban tattooing altogether are: Oklahoma and
South Carolina.
(If you only counted 49 states, you're right--the oddball is the state
of Florida, which has some unique laws.)
Regulations help promote professionalism, and discourage "scratchers."
This is important when considering disease transmission (HIV and
Hepatitis-B in particular). If you think this is a frivolous issue,
consider that Oklahoma and South Carolina have banned tattooing
altogether.
If state legislators try to introduce regulations on tattooing, make
sure they follow in the lines of the 11 states, which cover points such
as:
Artist requirements: Training, knowledge of sanitation, washing of
hands and use of barrier gloves for every new client
Facility requirements: Clean work area, availability of running water
Equipment requirements: Autoclave, disposable needles, covered waste
containers
Procedural requirements: Customers needing to be sober, use of signed
consent forms
The following are the actual requirements for the state of Hawaii. The
others with regulations follow in a similar vein:
Facilities
o Building must be clean, in good repair, have adequate lighting
o Adequate ventilation required
o Tattoo establishments many not be used for any non-tattoo related
activities
o Toilets must be provided for customers
o Work area must be separate from the rest of the business, or at
least separated upon request
Artist Hygiene
o Artists should always wash their hands before every tattoo.
o Separate sink (away from the toilet facilities) must be
available for artists to wash their hands
o Artists must dry their hands with single use paper towels or
some sort of mechanical (air) dryer
o Artists with communicable diseases may not tattoo
o Food, drink, and smoking not allowed in the work area
o Smoking prohibited
o May not tattoo in exchange for sex
Equipment
o Immersion in a germicidal solution as an alternative to
autoclaving allowed
o Use of defective, dull, or rusty equipment is banned
o Disposable single-use ink containers must be used, and with any
unused ink must be discarded after every customer
o All dyes must be approved
o Minimum number of needles and tubes must be kept on hand
o Only sterilized or disposable razors allowed
o Covered waste containers required
o Special storage cabinets for tattooing materials required
o Tattooing materials may not be stored in the restroom.
Procedures
o Facial tattoos may only be done by licensed physicians
o Injection of chemicals into the skin by tattoo artists to remove
tattoos is illegal
o Customers must be sober
o Signed consent forms required
o Parental consent forms required for minors
o Artists must keep records on every customer for at least 2 years
o Oral care instructions required
o Acetate stencils must be sanitized
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