MUNCIE, Ind. — Delaware County officials are considering a tougher ordinance regulating tattoos and body piercing businesses to ensure they don't perform procedures better suited for medical offices.
County commissioners approved the first reading of the ordinance and could take a final vote as early as Oct. 17.
Health department administrator Joshua Williams said Delaware County's 1998 tattoo and body piercing ordinance was one of the first in the state. He said the revised ordinance bans branding, skin peeling, tongue splitting and the voluntary removal of body parts that are actually surgical and medical procedures.
The ordinance cites castration, amputation of fingers or toes or removal of full limbs as examples, The Star Press reported.
"It's trending farther from tattoo and heading to medical procedures," Williams told county commissioners.
Health department inspector Christiana Mann said "extreme body modification" such as that covered in the ordinance is offered and "happening" in Delaware County.
But tattoo parlor owners said they don't see a need to change the existing ordinance.
"It kind of irks me," Drew Miniear, manager of Collins Classic Ink, said. "It's not like it's a problem. I don't understand why they're getting up into everybody's business."
Miniear said he has practiced scarification for five years but that there isn't a high demand for it.
He also has done suspension piercing performances, in which a person is suspended by hooks, in the past.
"It's more of a spiritual thing for me and a lot of people I know," he said. "It's not just a shock value thing."
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