Tattoo shop to open in Windsor

<p>Windsor, Sonoma County's youngest city, is about to get its first tattoo parlor.</p><p>But don't look for it in the showcase, family- and visitor-oriented downtown.</p><p>It will be discreetly tucked away in a small shopping center off Old Redwood Highway, away from the Town Green where such businesses are forbidden.</p><p>Town council members a couple years ago banned a variety of uses near the Town Green, including tattoo businesses, massage parlors, smoke shops, fortune tellers, bail bonds and check-cashing stores.</p><p>Officials said the intent was to avoid a “skid row” appearance that a proliferation of such businesses could create.</p><p>The restrictions were prompted by a smoke shop that opened in a prominent spot of Town Green Village in 2008.</p><p>Alarmed by the bongs and drug-related merchandise offered for sale just steps away from students walking to and from the high school, the Town Council ended up restricting new smoke shops to other commercial zones.</p><p>Other businesses seen as potentially causing blight, or eroding what Windsor touts as a family-friendly atmosphere, were restricted too, including tattoo parlors.</p><p>Jeremy Greer, the owner and operator of Wine Country Body Art, said his new tattoo business in Windsor Palms II Center will be run in a manner similar to a doctor's office.</p><p>“It will be a very clean and sterile environment,” he said in a statement accompanying his application, which was approved following a public hearing conducted by Planning Director Jim Bergman. “Health Department permits will be acquired and inspections will be conducted,” he said.</p><p>Greer reportedly plans to open his new business in October.</p><p>Bergman said there is an appeal period and members of the public have until Sept. 6 to object to the permit for the tattoo business.</p>