House won't hear tattoo regulation bill

Saturday, April 23rd 2005, 10:33 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ The Oklahoma House slammed the door shut on a tattoo regulation bill Friday, refusing to consider legislation to license tattoo parlors and lift the state's decades-old ban against tattooing.

Oklahoma is the only state in the nation where tattooing is illegal. A 27-year-old tattoo artist in Broken Arrow was charged with a misdemeanor count of unlawful tattooing earlier this month and faces up to 90 days in jail and a $500 fine if convicted.

Legislation that would license tattoo parlors and create a system of regulations administered by the state Department of Health was not heard by the House Health and Human Services Committee by Thursday's deadline.

The measure's author, Rep. Al Lindley, D-Oklahoma City, tried to revive it when he asked lawmakers to suspend House rules and allow the bill to be brought directly to the House floor for a vote. Lindley's motion was rejected 53-42 along party lines.

Republicans, including Health and Human Services Committee chairman Rep. Kris Steele of Shawnee, questioned Lindley at length about his attempts to pass tattoo licensing legislation this year and in previous years when Democrats controlled the House.

The GOP took control of the House for the first time in more than 80 years in last fall's elections.

Similar measures have been voted down in previous years due to opposition on moral grounds from lawmakers who also expressed concern that tattooing could spread diseases like hepatitis and HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Lindley said he had written a letter to Steele asking that the Senate-passed measure be heard. Rep. Greg Piatt, R-Ardmore, said that when Democrats controlled the House he ``had to go beg for a bill to be heard.''

Floor Leader Lance Cargill, R-Harrah, accused Lindley of distributing ``attack press releases'' that criticized GOP House leaders for not hearing the tattoo bill.

``My purposes of the press releases is to inform the public,'' Lindley said.

Lindley has said that Oklahoma's ban on tattoo parlors is ineffective and that tattoo artists advertise their services and conduct business in public shops in his south Oklahoma City district.

Piatt said it was Lindley's responsibility to inform law enforcement authorities when he saw state law being broken.

The Health Department, which supported the measure, said that between 2000 and 2003 the state experienced a 78 percent increase in new hepatitis C infections and 96 percent developed lifelong infections. Thirty-four percent of those infected said they had a tattoo.

A preliminary investigation into an outbreak of hepatitis B in LeFlore County last year revealed a potential link to unsanitary home tattooing. Officials in Atoka County reported antibiotic-resistant skin infections in four patients with recent nonprofessional tattoos.

But Steele said the Health Department could not verify that those who became ill were infected by their tattoos.