This SLO County city has banned tattoo parlors for almost 3 decades — but not any more
Get ready to see some more ink around town: After close to three decades of them being banned, Paso Robles will now allow tattoo parlors to operate within the city.
“Tattoo parlors today aren’t serving the same public they were serving 40 years ago,” Councilman Fred Strong said Tuesday night. “It’s not an unusual thing, it’s an art form and a way to express their personality.”
The decision to reverse a 1994 ban on tattoo parlors was one of a number of votes the Paso Robles City Council took at its final meeting of the year Tuesday night, including approving plans to develop the area around the Paso Robles Municipal Airport, allocate funds to the county for opioid addiction prevention and treatment, raise the salary for future city council representatives and more.
Here’s a look at what the council decided:
Tattoo parlors no longer banned in Paso Robles
The city council voted unanimously to adopt a new ordinance that reverses a 27-year-old ordinance that banned tattoo parlors from operating in the city of Paso Robles.
This means tattoo and body piercing shops can now operate in specific areas of the city.
In May 1994, the city of Paso Robles passed an ordinance that banned tattoo parlors and the act of tattooing in the city, citing health and safety concerns.
Since then, courts have said that bans on tattoo shops or tattooing are an unreasonable restriction on freedom of expression, prompting jurisdictions that passed them to revisit their ordinances.
The city adopted an urgency ordinance in October 2021 that allowed tattoo parlors to operate in the Riverside corridor and C-3 zones, which are more industrial parts of the city.
The decision Tuesday night makes that ordinance permanent.
The tattoo parlors are subject to certain time, place and manner restrictions, however, including a rule stating they must be 500 feet away from any city park or K-12 school. Tattoo shops are also not allowed to operate within 1,000 feet of each other.
Paso Robles Airport area one step closer to infrastructure updates
On Tuesday, the council also gave Paso Robles City Manager Ty Lewis permission to move forward with the next phase of traffic and circulation improvements for the area around the Paso Robles Municipal Airport.
The council hired the Wallace Group, a San Luis Obispo-based construction management firm, to develop plans and estimates for improving the Huer-Huero Creek Bridge, roundabout and parts of a class 1 bike trail, Lewis said.
The improvements to the bridge are “one of the first steps to connecting the airport area to town,” Lewis said.
He explained that having plans in place for these infrastructure improvements is necessary to qualify for state or federal funds for the project.
The Wallace Group’s fee for the plans, specifications and estimates phase of the project will not exceed $1,673,000, according to the staff report. The money for the plans and estimates comes out of the Developer Transportation Impact Fee Fund, which had a reserve balance of $5.9 million, according to the report.
However, it will cost roughly $17.5 million to build the Huer-Huero Creek Bridge and an estimated $10 million to build the bike and pedestrian trails, meaning more funding will need to be secured for the project in the future, according to the report.
Paso Robles settles with opioid manufacturers
The Paso Robles City Council opted into a settlement with opioid manufacturers and distributors and agreed to send the settlement money to San Luis Obispo County.
By opting into the settlement, the city opted out of future litigation against the companies deemed culpable for the nationwide opioid epidemic.
The city will get about $680,167 as part of a settlement with opioid distributors and manufacturers to go toward county drug treatment and prevention programs, after a vote Tuesday night.
According to a staff report, cities and states across the country are suing the top three distributors of opioids — Amerisource Bergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson — and manufacturer, Johnson and Johnson, after the opioid epidemic led to countless deaths and steep costs for communities.
Those lawsuits led to two settlements of about $26 billion, according to the staff report, a portion of which Paso Robles was entitled to.
The city did have the option to not get the settlement, and instead keep the possibility of pursuing litigation against those parties, but chose to take the settlement instead.
The city’s portion of the settlement — about $680,167 — will be distributed over 18 years, which totals about $37,787 per year, according to the report.
By default, the settlement money is actually allocated to the county, and is based upon opioid deaths per capita, incidence of opioid use disorder and opioid dosage, according to the staff report.
Cities receiving that money do have the option of taking the payment directly, rather than through the county, but Lewis recommended the settlement stay with the county.
“We’re recommending that county can use the funds to purchase Narcan and other types of prevention measures as well,” Lewis said.
Narcan is the brand name for Naloxone, a medication that can reverse and opioid overdose and is available for free in various locations throughout the county, according to the San Luis Obispo County Opioid Safety Coalition website.
Because the settlement stipulates that the funding has to go to drug prevention and addiction treatment programs, Mayor Steve Martin added that the most cost-efficient use of the funding is through the county, which has an Opioid Safety Coalition.
Salary and car stipend increases for future mayor, city council
The city council voted unanimously to increase the salaries of the mayor and city council representatives from $800 and $600 to $1,400 and $1,050, respectively.
The car stipend will also increase from $75 to $250 for city council representatives.
The jump in pay will make compensation for Paso Robles City Council the third highest in the Central Coast, according to a presentation by Administrative Services Direction Ryan Cornell.
The highest salaries are among San Luis Obispo City Council members — the council is paid $1,900 and the mayor is paid $2,508, according to Cornell. The second highest salaries are paid to Santa Maria City Council, where the council is paid $1,313 and the mayor is paid $1,563.
The salaries for the Paso Robles mayor and city council haven’t been increased since 2006, Lewis said.
City council members on Tuesday said the increase in pay was warranted.
“It is a tragedy that these are the lowest paid responsible positions in the city,” Strong said.
The salary increases will go into effect after the next election in November 2022.
This story was originally published December 9, 2021 at 12:27 PM.
