Westminster (Map, News) - A Westminster tattoo artist has organized Carroll County’s first tattoo convention to boost business and shatter social stigmas still associated with body art.

“Local tattoo artists need to band together,” said Bob Hewitt, owner of Tattooed Angel.

Thousands of tattoo artists and enthusiasts from across the nation are expected to attend the convention, slated for Jan. 27 and 28 in Westminster, said his wife, Polly Hewitt.

While the convention is intended to highlight the wide variety of people who enjoy getting inked, Tattooed Angel has run into roadblocks when it tried to relocate from Manchester Road outside of town to Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown Westminster.

The city planning commission voted this month to ban tattoo parlors downtown. The commission would not make an exception for Tattooed Angel, despite the city telling the Hewitts that the area’s commercial zoning allows it, according to a letter dated Aug. 28.

Tattoo parlors are unfairly viewed as a negative force in neighborhoods “like porno stores,” said Eric Gregory, an artist at Little Vinnie’s in Finksburg. “It’s silly. It’s people who don’t know about it, so they are afraid.”

Bob Hewitt said he also wants to form a guild for tattoo artists across Maryland.

At least 40 states already have tattoo artist guilds.

“The public themselves have changed their minds already about tattoos,” and residents realize tattoos are for more people than just bikers and drunken sailors, Polly Hewitt said. “The churches and [city] council members are the only ones who are afraid of voters not liking parlors downtown, but voters want it.”

Westminster Common Council considered banning tattoo parlors downtown years ago, Councilman Gregory Pecoraro said.

“Our view seven years ago was that tattoo parlors should not be downtown,” he said.

kvolkmann@baltimoreexaminer.com