Tattoo Parlor To Open In New Church

ACCOMACK: County approves tattoo parlor in former New Church funeral home

Written By
Carol Vaughn
Staff Writer

NEW CHURCH — This town near the Virginia-Maryland border will soon have a new business — a tattoo parlor.

The Accomack County Board of Zoning Appeals granted a special use permit for the business to Jeremy Rantz, who said he plans to open the parlor next month.

The parlor will be located at 4194 Lankford Highway, in one half of a former funeral home. The building is in a business-zoned district.

Rantz said he plans to locate a military surplus store in the building’s other half.

Rantz told zoning officials he has worked as a tattoo artist in another state and is in the process of getting licensed in Virginia.

The Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation regulates tattoo artists along with other professions including cosmetologists, surveyors and real estate agents.

Rantz, who recently completed EMT training, said his priority for the new business is safety, saying he has seen some tattoo artwork “done by people who do not know what they are doing.”

The room where the work will be done will be “wiped down, floors, walls and ceilings...It’s just like a hospital,” he said.


The building was extensively renovated after termite damage was discovered, including installing a new roof, Rantz said, adding, “This is the only place that has been 100 percent designed for a tattoo parlor.”


No one spoke against the business and no adjacent property owners registered opposition after receiving notification of the application.

Rantz’ business will not be the town’s first tattoo parlor; there was one located in a former bank building further north in the past, but it is no longer in business.

A Pocomoke City, Md., woman in 2008 was granted the first permit to operate a tattoo parlor in Accomack County for her business, Forever Yours Tattoo, in Temperanceville, which also later closed.


Building and Zoning Director David Fluhart said then other tattooists have worked in the county as a home occupation, which is governed by different zoning regulations.


Over the past decade tattooing has become one of the fastest growing categories of retail business in the nation, according to U.S. New and World Report.


An estimated 15,000 tattoo parlors are in operation in the United States and at least one new one opens each day, according to a 2011 report.


America’s Millennial generation — teens and twenty-somethings — have embraced tattoos as a means of self-expression.


Nearly four in ten have a tattoo, and among those who do, about half have between two to five tattoos and 18 percent have six or more, according to the Pew Research Center.

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