Schaumburg considers allowing tattoo parlors to avoid legal challenge

Schaumburg officials may allow tattoo parlors as special uses in manufacturing districts after their attorney advised that continuing to not allow them would not withstand a First Amendment legal challenge.

A potential business owner provided the village case law showing that courts have upheld tattooing as a constitutionally protected activity, Schaumburg Village Attorney Lance Malina said.

The village has never actively banned tattoo businesses, but it has not included them on the list of uses that were permitted. Whether that was deliberate or an oversight is difficult to say today, Malina said.

"Until recently, tattooing was really a fringe thing in our society," he said. "The culture has changed ... so there's business where there wasn't."

Schaumburg Community Development Director Julie Fitzgerald said she's anticipating a formal proposal for a tattoo establishment once the zoning has been changed to enable it.

Though the village staff's recommendation is to allow tattoo parlors only with special-use permits in manufacturing districts, the potential business owner expressed a preference to locate in a more traditional retail site with the possibility of more foot traffic around, Fitzgerald said.

The village's planning, building & development committee has also added a requirement for a 1,000-foot buffer zone from churches and schools, which wasn't part of the original staff recommendation, Malina said.

At 7 p.m. Tuesday, the village board will consider sending the committee recommendation to the zoning board of appeals for a public hearing next month.

Unless it requires more than one meeting, the zoning board's recommendation could be back before the village board for final approval by the end of May, Fitzgerald said.

While considering their recommendation, the village staff surveyed other members of the Northwest Municipal Conference to see how tattoo parlors were being regulated elsewhere. Among the 17 municipalities that responded, only three allowed tattoo businesses to any degree.

Both Fox Lake and Skokie require special-use permits for tattoo parlors, as Schaumburg staff members are recommending. Carpentersville was the only municipality surveyed in which tattoo businesses are a generally permitted use in commercial districts.