San Clemente is about to get something revolutionary. The sleepy beach town, which for nearly 70 years has been neighbor to a military base, is about to have a tattoo shop – apparently the first in its history.“I’m so excited; I’ve hardly slept since I got the keys,” said Susie Floyd, owner of Highland Ink Tattoo Studio, so named because Floyd hails from the Scottish Highlands. “My mum actually named the studio,” Floyd said.

She approached the city asking for a business license to open on Avenida Del Mar. She said she was told that tattoo parlors – which are not listed in the zoning code – were not allowed.

She contacted Robert Moest, a lawyer who took Hermosa Beach to court in 2010 over a similar zoning issue. In September, a court ruled that tattooing is an art form protected by the First Amendment and ordered Hermosa Beach to include tattoo parlors in its zoning regulations.

A letter from Moest to San Clemente on Floyd’s behalf led the City Council to discuss the legal implications with its city attorney. The council directed staff to change the code.

The code is still in process. Staff and the council have to decide whether there are commercial districts where they don’t want to permit tattooing. Hermosa Beach specified permitted zones and a minimum distance between tattoo parlors.

Since San Clemente’s change of heart, “the city have been nothing but helpful to me,” Floyd said. “I got the decision within two weeks. Everybody up in the (city) office has just bent over backward to help me fill in permit forms. They’ve just been amazing.”

Floyd picked a spot 10 blocks south of Avenida Del Mar. It’s close to downtown, she said, and the rent is cheaper than downtown.

San Clemente, which was founded in 1925 and has been neighbor to a Marine base since Camp Pendleton was established in 1942, has never had a tattoo parlor, as far as several longtime residents can tell. Town matriarch Lois Divel and old-timers Bob Carrick, Norm Haven and Jack Lashbrook all say no, as do Max Berg, who worked for the city from 1950 to 1985, and Al Ehlow, the police chief from 1961 to 1992.

HOW FLOYD GOT HERE

Growing up an artist, Floyd studied at the University of Brighton in England and taught art in high schools for 12 years. She came to America in 2001 to teach in Washington, D.C.

She said she accepted a job as an assistant principal in 2008 at a private school in Doha, Qatar, in the Middle East, for two years. That job enabled her to save for her dream of opening a tattoo shop in America.

In 2010, she took a teaching job at a high school in San Diego but was laid off.

“My whole world crashed,” she said. “I came back to my house and my dog Haggis (named for a traditional Scottish dish) is sitting there and someone had put this postcard under my door saying to come visit sunny San Clemente. I thought, ‘Where in the heck is that?’ so I Googled it. And I thought it’s only an hour away.”

She and Haggis traveled up the coast, “and I literally parked the car at the top of the hill, walked my dog right down the hill (Avenida Del Mar) and I had never met so many friendly people in the whole year I’d been in San Diego,” Floyd said.

She and Haggis watched the sunset. Floyd saw a “For rent” sign. “That’s where I now live,” she said.

“I just feel it’s all meant to be,” she said. “San Clemente kind of found me. I started asking around, and there was no tattoo shop here. I thought, ‘Why?'”

Jim Holloway, San Clemente’s community-development director, said, “Times have changed, and we certainly want to accommodate the tattoo businesses. We just want to make sure they are properly located and that functionally the designs and locations work well.”

FLOYD’S GOAL

 Floyd said her tattoo studio will double as an art studio and that she hopes to include it on San Clemente’s art walks.

“(When) you come in, you’re spending a lot of money to get something that’s going to be on your body forever,” she said. “I want you to come in and be relaxed and enjoy the experience. So we’re going to offer you DVDs, videos, British comedies to watch while you get tattooed. All my artists are very friendly and personable. We’re going to serve you tea or anything you’d like to drink, and you can go downstairs during your break and lounge in the Moroccan Lounge.

“I’m very, very excited,” she said.

Contact the writer: fswegles@ocregister.com or 949-492-5127

 

The photo above is of a cancer patient that Susie worked on in her studio.

Click on her links to see more of her fantastic work!