‘All us sinners on the same block’: Why are all those MB tattoo shops on Seaboard Street?

Kassie Hawse sat in a chair, feet propped up, her left forearm facing toward the ceiling. A light buzzing sound filled the room.

Blue ink spread across her arm, coming from an electric needle, waves slowly becoming permanent fixtures on her body.

Robert Lanz, artist and co-owner of Elite Ink Tattoos, was working on the next part of her full-arm tattoo, made up of several tropical- and tiki-themed tattoos.

“We’re going to flow the blue water down into a piece that Kassie originally had, and make this artist,” Lanz said pointing to himself, “and this artist, kind of pull together like we had a plan,” showing how he would make two different artists’ work look like one.

Lanz opened one of the first tattoo shops in Myrtle Beach, after the art was made legal in 2006.

Knowing legalization was coming, the City of Myrtle Beach enforced zoning for tattoo and piercing shops, limiting them to warehouse manufacturing zones — criteria that leaves four small zones in city limits for tattoo and piercing shops, city spokesman Mark Kruea said.

“You could see that it was imminent,” Kruea said.

But several shops chose to open on Seaboard Street, and 13 are nestled into a plaza that local shop owners refer to as the block.

“I love the fact that we are all beside each other,” said April Davis, owner of Myrtle Beach Ink. “I think it’s great for customers. It’s a little easier for them to go side by side and choose and kind of compare businesses, compare portfolios, personalities, things like that within the business.”

Life on the block

Despite liking customers to have the option to shop around for the right tattoo parlor, Davis said there are issues with the zoning.

The zones are located along Seaboard Street, a small area along 9th Avenue North, a spot across from Coastal Grand Mall and an area near Dividend Loop — locations filled with construction and industrial businesses.

“First-time customers are a little more nervous,” Davis said. “They don’t quite know what to expect — whether we’re going to be that stereotypical biker tattoo shop — and then they turn and it’s an industrial area.”

Davis said people often wonder if they are in the right spot when they first turn onto Seaboard.

Driving down Seaboard Street, warehouses tower over the street and cranes are visible from the road. Workers operate forklifts, moving supplies around lots filled with trucks.

People pass by two strip clubs on the street.

“All nude BYOB,” reads one club’s sign.

“It stings a little to know that they’re a little more lax on strip clubs than they are us, not that there’s anything wrong with strip clubs,” Davis said. “But I think tattoos are a little more accepted than strip clubs, so there was a little sting at first but we’re used to it.

“I don’t mind the health department being as strict on us — that’s great. But the city regulating we can only be in this one little area, it’s a bit much.”

According to Kruea, strip clubs have their own set of regulations.

While most shops are located in the block, ones like Hero Tattoo chose to open for business in one of the other areas. The shop has two locations — one in Conway and one across from Coastal Grand Mall.

Other owners, like Lanz, decided to move out of the plaza and farther down Seaboard Street. While Lanz moved out of the plaza, he does agree with the city’s zoning.

“If they were to open those gates, I could truly see Myrtle Beach being outrun by tattoo and body-piercing studios,” Lanz said. “It would be on every corner. We don’t need that. We don’t need that with any business. Can you only imagine if there was a pizzeria on every corner? Oh wait, there is.”

But for Steve Mosher, a tattoo artist at Bulldawg Tattoo, the zoning just hurts shops.

“They wanted all us sinners in the same block,” Mosher said. “So we’ve got tattoo shops, couple head shops, couple piercing shops and then strip clubs right at the end of the block. So this is just the area of town they keep us on. Us sinners.

“I do believe Myrtle Beach is putting a nail in their foot by keeping us all in this area. There’s enough work in this town to keep 13 businesses going.”

‘Bad choices, but good memories’: Underground tattooing

Walking into a tattoo shop in Fayetteville, North Carolina, the first thing Lanz noticed was the smell of leather and cigarettes.

Lanz, 10 years old at the time, was about to get his first tattoo.

“My feet were dangling off the chair because I wasn’t tall enough to reach the floor,” Lanz said.

And after his first one, he was hooked.

But a move to South Carolina left Lanz shocked, realizing that tattooing still wasn’t legal in the state due to a hepatitis scare that started in New York years prior.

Despite the ban, artists would come to Myrtle Beach, staying in local hotels and motels. When an artist was in town, locals would line up to get tattoos in what Lanz called underground tattooing.

“I have a lot of great memories in Myrtle Beach being tattooed underground,” Lanz said. “Yes, it was illegal at the time. Was it clean? We don’t know. Are we still here? I am.

“Bad choices, but good memories. Great memories. A tattoo is a memory. It’s not about what you’re getting, it’s about when you’re getting it. It’s a memory in your life.”

Finally, in 2006, the state lifted the ban, making South Carolina the second-to-last state to make tattooing legal. Oklahoma quickly followed suit, making tattoos legal in every state.

And for Lanz, opening a tattoo shop in Myrtle Beach was his way of showing people that tattoos are more than the taboos people associate them with.

“When they brought the tattooing in, we started small, because, again, we weren’t sure if the city was going to kind of shut us down, call us unsavory,” Lanz said. “Fourteen years ago, it was different. It was still bikers, it was the unsavory people that were still getting tattoos.”

Today, different shops have a different feel, he said.

For Mosher, Bulldawg Tattoo sees a lot of females wanting smaller tattoos, he said. At Myrtle Beach Ink, Davis said she’s seeing an older clientele.

Each year, someone from an older generation walks in, Davis said.

And at Elite Ink, Lanz is seeing clients close to 70 years old, he said.

“[Older people] used to step back and clasp their purse real nice and tight” when they saw tattooed people, Lanz said. “Now they can’t wait to walk up and actually touch your skin, which is a little rude and discomforting, but we allow it to happen.”

This story was originally published December 21, 2018 at 1:40 PM.