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Watt's On Barrie: Buyer beware is a tough and costly lesson for downtown tattoo parlour

There’s an old principle called “Buyer Beware”. And for owners of Unique Ink, a tattoo parlour that had the good fortune of being allowed to stay in its Clapperton Street location because it predated a Barrie bylaw, it’s a hard lesson
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Laurie Watt's column Watt's on Barrie

There’s an old principle called “Buyer Beware”.

And for owners of Unique Ink, a tattoo parlour that had the good fortune of being allowed to stay in its Clapperton Street location because it predated a Barrie bylaw, it’s a hard lesson.

In 2011, Barrie established a 100-metre minimum separation distance between tattoo parlours, payday lenders and pawn shops. This change has impacted Unique Ink's plan to move to a Dunlop Street site.

On Friday, the tattoo parlour’s would-be landlord argued the case to allow the tattoo parlour to move beside a payday loan establishment, because the tattoo parlour was already beside one.

Complicating the issue further is a Nov. 25 Committee of Adjustment decision granting Unique Ink a “minor variance”, allowing it to move down the street and around the corner to a few doors down from the Mady Centre for the Performing Arts.

Jack Garner, who for years ran a family business downtown, argued that the 100 per cent exemption wasn’t minor and he appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board. That hearing took place Friday. The hearing chairman reserved her decision.

During the hearing, lawyer Roger Chown noted downtown has a cluster of tattoo parlours, payday lenders and pawn shops, some which don’t have business licenses. It’s clear that Barrie hasn’t been enforcing that rule, even as the city sells off parking lots to generate investment and approved boosting the cost of revitalizing Memorial Square by another $1 million to $5.2 million.

One wonders about what’s happening at City Hall, where a planner advised the Committee of Adjustment to not grant the exemption.  

Further complicating this are the Downtown BIA and the Barrie Chamber of Commerce, who lobbied for the business owner’s right to locate his tattoo parlour anywhere he likes. For years, as those groups lobbied Barrie to spend money on downtown, they also had no issue with the bylaw – otherwise they could’ve asked Barrie to revise the bylaw, rather than supporting this back-alley way of getting the rule made irrelevant by advocating for a precedent that would effectively make it null and void.

There are some facts to remember here:

Barrie spent years and millions on downtown revitalization. It has attempted to upgrade and expand the genre of businesses downtown by passing not only the separation distance rule, but also outlawing adult entertainment parlours in the city core. (The one across from where Unique Ink would like to locate is grandfathered. Should it close, another can’t replace it.)

As well, yesterday the OMB heard there were pawn shops and tattoo parlours without business licences. Take a walk along Dunlop Street between Toronto and the Five Points and count the payday lenders, the tattoo parlours and notice the pawn shop less than half a block down Mary Street. Apparently not all are licensed.

Clearly Unique Ink needs a bigger, brighter location than its current spot on Clapperton Street, just up from the Five Points.

But there are lots of options. Blaming a bylaw and the OMB delay isn’t fair.

What could cost Unique Ink its future is its failure to do its due diligence before it signed a lease.

Buyer beware.