City inspector blesses tattoo shop’s mural

       City officials may or may not know what art is, but they know what's in city codes, and, as a result, they have ruled that the expression of creativity on an outside wall of the West Side Tattoo business is a mural, not grafitti.
       According to Ginna Sanders, city land use inspector, city code has definitions of both types of wall coverings. To be considered a mural, a painting cannot promote a business or product… and the West Side Tattoo's does not. To be considered grafitti, the work must have been put up without consent of the property owner. And West Side Tattoo has that consent, according to its properietors.
       The city looked into the matter after a citizen filed a complaint about the mural with its code enforcement office, Sanders said.
       An informal survey by West Side Tattoo has indicated that most people have no objection to the mural.
       Co-owner Aaron Moore said he wasn't all that surprised by the ruling because a city official had OK'd their request to put a mural on the wall in the first place. “We weren't going to do anything against the rules,” he said. “We're trying to make a strong business for the Westside and our families. I'm just stoked that it (the complaint) is dropped.”
       The issue came to the forefront recently after a letter from a citizen to the tattoo business (copied to the Westside Pioneer) and a heated debate on the issue at an Organization of Westside Neighbors meeting.
       The mural is on the west side of the business' wall along 21st Street just south of Colorado Avenue.

Westside Pioneer article