Dec. 1, 1964 - The ancient art of tattooing, which has adorned kings as well as sailors, was declared illegal in New York City today by a court that described the practice as a “barbaric survival.”
By a vote of 4 to 1, the Appellate Division overturned a State Supreme Court decision and reinstituted a city ban on tattooing by anyone except doctors.
At present, there are only two or three tattoo parlors operating in the city. Unless the decision is overturned by the Court of Appeals, these parlors will be forced to close, ending an art that predates history books.
In a four‐page decision that delved into psychology, art, and medicine as well as law, the majority expressed a decidedly repugnant attitude over tattooing,
whether it was designed to honor mother or country or to express prowess.
“It is still true that there is no accounting for taste, but the decoration, so called, of the human body by tattoo designs is, in our culture, a barbaric survival, often associated with a morbid or abnormal personality,” the court said.
In a footnote, the ruling said that one‐third of the drug addicts admitted to the Public Health Hospital at Lexington, Ky., were tattooed. And among addicts who were sexual deviants, the court said, “the increase of tattooing was markedly higher.”
The court did not note that the mighty as well as the low have also been devotees of the practice, including Lady Randolph Churchill, the American-born mother of Sir Winston; Kings George V and Edward VII of England, King Alfonso XII of Spain and Viscount Montgomery of Alamein.
The appellate court said that the city had not exceeded its authority by banning nonmedical tattooing under the provisions of the Health Code. Hepatitis, a liver disease, could be transmitted, the court said, by the use of unsterilized needles.
“Such transmissions occur to persons who have been tattooed seven times more frequently than they occur in persons who have not been tattooed,” the decision said.
The court said that the control of tattooing “comes well within the field of securing the health of the community.”
In denying the plea by the owners of two tattoo parlors to remain in business, the notion that tattooing should be controlled rather than abolished was rejected.
“It is not they who are on trial,” the majority said, “but the trade they are engaged in. And it is the practices of trade that endanger the community.”
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