In keeping with its zoning ordinances which prohibit tattoo parlors in city limits, Hermosa Beach, California has refused to license a shop for tattoo artist Johnny Anderson, owner of Yer Cheat'n Heart in a nearby less affluent town. Anderson claims that his freedom of expression is being violated by the zoning codes and has filed suit.
The city claims that tattoos are a risk to the city's health, safety, and welfare; the "unhealthy mutilation" and the potential for infection overrides, in their viewpoint, Anderson's assertion that artistic expression is a protected First Amendment right. Anderson's case, by the way, has reached California's Ninth District Court and is supported by some con law professors.
Heather blogged that individual rights end where the rights of others begin. I have to admit that I'd prefer not to live next door to a tattoo parlor, strip club, or even a fast food restaurant with an all night drive up window.
So don't the folk of Hermosa Beach have the right to decide what is in their backyards?
But where do their rights end?
Anderson can always create his "art" somewhere else, but what if a community refuses the Klan or Tea Partiers a permit to march because it risks the "health, safety, and welfare" of the community?
What if a community bars low end apartments and homes to keep "undesirables" out?
What if a community districts schools in ways that create racial quotas?
What if a Mapplethorpe exhibition is barred?
What if the "risk" is a book?
Wow,
ReplyDeleteI am a little bit surprised by this post. I didn't even realize that there were places where tattoo parlors weren't allowed. In this day and age, it almost seems like more people than not have tattoos. Reading this made me wish that my town would have had this rule when I was 18, only because it would have helped me avoid a hideous mistake. Haha.
On a serious note, I thought you brought up some interesting parallels such as the exhibition and low income housing. It seems like there are so many issues related to intellectual freedom that I never thought about prior to this class and program.
Leah
This is the price of living in a free society. We must endure things that are upsetting and or which we oppose philosophically, whether they are tattoo parlors, Klan Marches, or political rallies. Until I read this post I never really thought about the fact that there is a tattoo parlor right across the street from my high school in Evansville. No one complained or said a word about it, it suddenly was there. The high school serves a very low income area which may be why no one objected. As Leah said it was not a connection I would have made before this class.
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