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Ronald Wilson's Five Star Tattoos

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NEW YORK (WENY) - New legislation in New York could soon make it harder for tattoo shops and artists to operate. A new law signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo will place tougher restrictions on what equipment tattoo shops can use.

Under New York State law, tattoo and body piercing studios will have to switch to single-use needles and single-use ink. Most tattoo studios already use single-use sterile needles but when it comes to switching to single-use ink packets that could be tricky. Ronald Wilson, from Five Star Tattoo, in Elmira Heights, says tattoo companies don't make single-use ink packets. Wilson says Millienium Ink used to make single-use ink packets for tattoo conventions but stopped making them because artists found them wasteful. …show more content…

"No tattoo artist worth their soul pours ink back into the bottle, that's just ridiculous and it's unheard of in the professional community," says Wilson.

The law will also require the specialist and the person getting the tattoo or piercing to sign a consent form confirming the specialist showed them the sealed single-use package, and opened it in front of them. The studio would then have to keep those forms for seven years. Wilson says unless those consent form were notarized, they would be pointless and just take up space. "We would have to keep stacks and stacks of paper. We'd literally have to get a separate storage unit for the paperwork," explains Wilson.

Michael Bjorck, who is on his fourth tattoo and also works as a paramedic, says he feels most tattoo shops self regulate to keep up with health standards. "We don't really see people seeking out medical care, at least in a hospital, for infections related to tattoos. Do they happen, yes, but we see a lot more people who have post opt. infections after they have their appendix removed or something else than we do with infections related to tattoos," explains

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