A Body of Work

While it is known unlicensed and unregulated tattooing is going on in Carbon County, neither the county nor the City of Rawlins regulates the activity at this time.

Megan Cragun, Communicable Disease Unit Outreach Coordinator for the Carbon County Public Health Department, said the county does not have any regulations or policies on opening a tattoo shop or on tattooing.

“Anybody can tattoo a person in their garage or wherever,” Cragun said in an interview. “Some counties have funding to support a position [to regulate tattooing], but Carbon County does not.”

Some Wyoming counties do regulate tattooing, also called body art. The Casper/Natrona County Health Division regulates tattooing as does Campbell County Public Health and the Teton [County] Health District, for example.

The only state regulation related to tattooing is a prohibition against tattooing a minor without the parent’s consent, according to Kim Deti, public information officer for the Wyoming Department of Health.

Deti said in an email that “the only state regulation regarding tattoo parlors prohibits giving a tattoo to a minor without parental consent. Some counties or municipalities do have ordinances related to tattoo parlors and require licensing and inspections.

“The Wyoming Department of Health would potentially get involved if a tattoo parlor was believed to be the source of an infectious disease or other outbreak. Our role would be to follow up on reported illnesses and provide recommendations.”

“It is possible to get HIV from tattooing or body piercing if the equipment or ink has someone else’s blood in it,” as stated on https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/basics/hiv-transmission/ways-people-get-hiv. “This is more likely to happen when the person doing the procedure is unlicensed because they may use unsterilized needles or ink.”

Sue Jones, chairman of the Carbon County Board of County Commissioners, said in an interview two big factors why the county does not regulate tattooing are cost and manpower.

Some more populated counties like Natrona and Laramie have the tax base to afford the manpower and cost of regulating tattooing, Jones said. The smaller counties rely on the state health department to implement the regulations.

“It’s about numbers, dollars and the number of people,” she said, adding there are no tattoo shops in unincorporated Carbon County.

If the state doesn’t regulate tattooing, she said—and added she was curious to know if they do—the obligation to regulate should start with the municipalities first and then the county.

Candice Hafer, co-owner of Twisted Delusions Ink, a tattooing studio in Rawlins, said she presented her concerns about the need for tattooing regulations to the City of Rawlins. People from the city talked to her about regulating tattooing, Hafer said, but nothing resulted from the discussion.

Hafer said she knows people are tattooing in Rawlins and unincorporated Carbon County.

“There are several-- I could probably rattle off five in Rawlins,” she said. “Some kids are tattooing on themselves and their friends in Baggs.”

She said she takes safety precautions for herself and her clients when tattooing and has a bloodborne certification. The certification instructs on how not to transmit bloodborne pathogens from one person to another or from an item to another.

She does not have a permit to tattoo and no one from county health comes by to “check on them,” she said.

Kids have come by asking for piercings on their nose and for facial piercings at “an extremely young age,” she said. “I have a moral compass [so I won’t do that].”

She said she will not tattoo on young people in areas such as face, hands or necks because “you never know if they are going to need to get a job [later in life]” and it could affect their ability to earn a living.

“Certain tattoos are looked at in certain ways” and can affect how a person moves forward in a job and the military, she added.

Rawlins City Council discussed what it would take to regulate tattooing at its meeting on May 16.

Then City Attorney Gwendolyn Wade said any ordinance to regulate tattooing would have to be a memorandum of understanding between the city, the county attorney’s office and the county health department.

“We are in process with [this discussion] with the county and that is where we are with that,” she said.

City Mayor Terry Weickum said: “When you start tattooing, you can hurt somebody really bad,” referring to what could happen if safety precautions are not followed.

Wade said “statutorily” the county has no authority over the regulation of tattoos.

“So unless our county health officer is willing to take that on, there might be hangups,” she said.

Dr. Duane Abels is the county health officer and was reappointed earlier this year.

“So is there a good, solid effort to educate [Dr. Abels] on what we’re wanting and why we are wanting that,” the mayor said.

Asking the doctor to do this could require funding to pay him, she said.

“If it’s the right amount, it might be worth it,” he said.

Regulation is definitely needed, she said.

The City was unable to confirm as of press time as to where there had been any progress made looking into regulating tattoo art since the May council meeting.

Jane Glaser, executive director of Campbell County Public Health, said they are one of a few or the only completely county-funded health agency in the state of Wyoming.

Glaser said in 2005 the county adopted the guidelines for its County Board of Health.

“We were beginning to have more tattoo parlors –an influx of new parlors wanting to open,” she said, citing one reason the county did this.

“[The county] decided they should be involved in the regulation of tattoo parlors for cleanliness, [to prevent the spread of] communicable disease,” she said. The City of Gillette does not regulate tattooing and “allows the county to handle it.”

The regulation is funded by the county’s tax base, she said. “All of our nurses are county employees. “Most of the nurses at public health in Wyoming are actually state employees.”

Tattoo parlors have to apply for “licensure” at a cost of $50 a year, she said. The county health officer and environmental person go out together to make sure the business is meeting the guidelines for cleanliness among other things.

“It’s a pay for service,” she said. It is not a strain on the other functions of the public health department, such as HIV testing and nursing home visits, for example.

“It’s just a tiny service we offer compared to the other core functions of county health,” she added.

The Environmental Health Division of Casper/Natrona County Health regulates body art, said Ruth Heald, program manager. The health division requires the owners of tattoo establishments to have a license, Heald said. The license includes regulation of permanent cosmetics, she added.

This is a way to ensure the “places they work out of are in good condition, have enough sinks for hand washing, for example.” Inspectors look at the overall cleanliness of the facility and make sure the surfaces are clean and sanitized.

Some counties are considered home rule counties, she said. Citizens of these counties voted to support a local health department.

She said the number of tattoo shops in the area has increased from 13 about 10 years ago to 38 licensed shops now. She said,“It’s extremely popular.”