Take Action is located at 938 N. Detroit St., Warsaw.

WARSAW — The Warsaw Board of Zoning Appeals held a special session on Tuesday, Nov. 13,  to address the revision of a special exception granted in 2011.

The petitioner, Jonathan Brown of Take Action LLC, requested a revision to the conditions required by a special exception variance granted in 2011. These conditions denied the petitioner approval to display signage at 938 N. Detroit St., advertising tattooing and body piercing services. Take Action LLC, located in the Center Lake Plaza, is now petitioning the board to remove these conditions and permit them to advertise all of their services.

The board’s decision to apply these conditions was based on the idea that tattoo parlors have a detrimental impact on adjacent property values and a precedent set in 2004 that restricted Karma, a business formerly located within the same strip retail center at 936 N. Detroit St., from using signage to advertise their tattooing and body piercing services. The argument for negative effects predicated on the idea that this type of use has a detrimental impact on property value has not been documented in any substantiated way. As tattoos have become more mainstream, tattoo parlors have also become more commonplace. It was determined that a tattoo parlor in a strip retail center will have no more of a negative impact than a retailer with large deliveries, noisy operations or high traffic demands.

In 2014, Mosthigh Tattooing, located at 2124 E. Winona Ave., was granted a variance to operate with no restrictions on signage. This location had a similar proximity to a residential district just beyond the city limits. The board felt that the benefit of having an occupied commercial space created more of a positive impact on adjacent property values than any potentially negative impacts resulting from a tattoo parlor operating at this location.

In 2016 the Supreme Court made a ruling in the case of Reed vs. Town of Gilbert that restricted municipal regulations regarding sign content. The court viewed this as a threat to freedom of speech. The city is able to restrict the use of obscenities and is able to apply more scrutiny on commercial signs than to noncommercial signs; however, it is still prudent to reevaluate the conditions applied to this special exception in light of these recent rulings.

Based on the information provided and considering the 2016 Supreme Court ruling, the planning department strongly recommended that the board remove the conditions placed on this special exception granted in 2011.

“In 2011 we granted a variance. On that grant, we put specific restrictions pertaining to usage of certain words such as tattoo, body piercing and so forth,” said City Planner Jeremy Skinner. “In 2016 the Supreme Court ruled that you cannot discriminate against certain use of language including tattoo, body art, body piercing. In order to rectify this, I move that we approve removing those restrictions from the special exception granted in 2011 for Take Action.”

Board members unanimously approved removal of the restrictions.