Gem City Tattoo Club

Well, the shop's been here just over a year, November 15th of 2010 is when we got it open and just been going at it ever since. Really? What makes you decide to come downtown Dayton and then you used to work out your burrs? Well, I don't know to be honest with you, nobody had any shops downtown Dayton. I just felt I wanted an old school tattoo shop. What all went into starting a tattoo shop down here? And this is your first independent business? I know you've worked with some other tattoo shops here. This is your first launch on your own? Mm-hmm. What all is involved in that whole process and what you learned about it? Well, basically found the space called the zoning board, asked them if were able to have a shop here. They said yes. And then I basically made sure it had occupancy. I didn't want to fool with any of that. One of the other things that I did was when I was looking for spaces, I was looking for a spot that had pl Things that we need to operate as a legal tattoo shop is to meet the health board requirements. Then basically contacted the health board, gave them a floor plan of the shop and all that. Then they came in and looked at it and we passed on our first try. Just made sure that read the regulations and went through them. So you got down here, how has business been and how have I know it's a competitive business. How do you work to get the folks in here all the time and build the customers? Honestly word of mouth. I use, honestly I'll use Facebook to network somewhat. But the main thing is just having a clientele. I've been in the area for a long time and I have a pretty good clientele. Just being honest, giving people good tattoos, fair price and not just trying to be a good tattoo artist really. Speaking of tattoos, now I've seen some stuff in the news lately where guys have come up with crazy tattoos all over their face. A tattoo, it's probably so that How wise are some tattoos compared to others? Do Obviously if I got a sailor out of my arm it's not nearly as much. A tattoo of Charles Manson between my eyes. People might run into problems with that Charles Manson between their eyes. Is this what How do you counsel people on tattoos? Even everything clean and safe? What's your philosophy of tattoos? Well, I do counsel people on things. I think I've been tattooing for ten years before I got anything below my sleeve. Now I've got stuff on my forearms, my fingers. You have one on my forehead. But as far as that goes, yeah, I definitely will tell people. I don't care how acceptable it is right now, how cool it is right now. Once we leave the shop, we're just another freak walking down the street. You go into a job interview, I don't care where it's at. I don't care not to diss a job of McDonald's. Any job's good, but you're probably not going to get that job if you get your face all tattooed up. You're going to get your hands all tattooed up, things Call those job stoppers. Try to steer people away from names, things Just because it's never guaranteed you're going to stay with someone. We've lived a long time. Definitely steer people away from things that I feel are offensive. I won't do racial stuff, I should say, or things Definitely try to guide people into a good decision. No hate tattoos, man. This is a love tattoo shop. This tattoo shop gets a lot of different demographics come through the door. I don't want to offend anybody. I'm in business to get everybody's money. What's the biggest thing you've learned from opening your own business? It's a lot of work, a lot of stress sometimes. It's a different kind of stress. You've got to pay my bills at home, you've got to pay the bills here. You've got to keep everything in line, manage time. I think that's the biggest thing, is just learning how to manage everything, keep everything under control, not letting things get away from me. To a point, you can't control everything. That's really it. I know that one of the most important things about tattoo is clinics. Tell me about what all of them are? Well, first of all, all the needles are new. They are sterilized. The autoclave has to pass a spore test weekly. As far as when we do the tattoo, The ink is one use. The needles are sterile. Everything is wrapped in plastic. I put barriers on everything. I wear gloves. When I get done cleaning up, I use the dirty hand clean method. Then I spray everything down with a hard surface sanitizer, which kills everything. It's not sanitizing something and sterilizing something or two different things. But the sanitization is basically the same thing that they do in a doctor's office, dentist's office, places The sterilization is also the same thing that they do. It's just the instr They are all sterile. What's the funnest tattoo you've ever given? The funnest tattoo? You've really enjoyed it as far as I've got. I don't know. Just when I tattoo my friends. It's one of those things It'special to me. It really is. I think, and even more so when I tattooed my son when he turned 18, that I guess that's what's really special. I remember when he was still in his mom's belly and now he's bigger than me and I got to tattoo him a few times. That'special to me. What about tattooing? The art form? You like to maybe, But for the non-tattoo crowd out there that may not understand, What would you tell people there Oh my gosh. There's always people with tattoos. What am I going to do? Well, tattooing is one of the things where when I got into business it wasn't cool. It was starting to become cool. And it's definitely gotten real cool lately. But over time it's going to go, I say it'll go through its face. I've watched it be cool, uncool, and now it's cool again. And I've watched it go through those faces as far as that goes. I mean the people that look at other people and they don't I mean, really it was, I don't know how to put it, but it's, They don't hate other people that don't have tattoos. And then I've done pretty much my whole adult life. It'something that I'm going to continue to do. As far as Dayton goes, I think Dayton, Dayton stuttered a little bit. I think it's, it could be down here, it could be really cool if people continue to bring businesses into downtown Dayton and care about their community. Dayton, I'll say it, Dayton doesn't suck. I've been in a lot of other places. Dayton's really not that bad. Thank you.