enlarge Jack Milton/Staff Photographer

Jeffrey Beaudoin created this tattoo of a character from the movie “Silent Hill” on his lower leg. He got started in the business as a teenager selling his designs to shops in Portland.

enlarge Jack Milton/Staff Photographer

Randy Jensen inks a tattoo on Mark Wildes of Portland on Friday at Infinity Tattoo in Standish. The tattoo is of the baby footprints of Wildes’ son. Infinity Tattoo's location on Route 25 is one of the busiest areas of town.

enlarge Jack Milton/Staff Photographer

Randy Jensen and Jeffrey Beaudoin opened Infinity Tattoo in Standish after South Portland proposed a six-month moratorium on tattoo and body-piercing studios.

Apparently, tattoo artists' money is no good in South Portland.

Then again, maybe it could be.

Almost a month ago, officials in South Portland sprang into action when word came that two tattoo artists were looking to set up shop in the city.

Tattoo artist Jeffrey Beaudoin, a South Portland native, and his business partner Randy Jensen had a space on Broadway all lined up to open their new shop.

To put the brakes on what would have been the city's first tattoo shop, the City Council entertained the idea of a six-month freeze on the opening of any tattoo parlors and body-piercing studios.

Was the fear of the unwashed, ink-stained dregs of society so great that the city was looking to buy itself time to put together a law that would cover how tattoo shops would run in South Portland?

Not exactly. Instead of voting to move the moratorium on tattoo shops ahead, the council will most likely kill it.

Score a victory for Beaudoin and Jensen, except they already skipped town to open up their shop in Standish.

It looked like the latest socio-cultural-generational dust-up, this time over what's art and what's bad for the neighborhood. Somehow it became another case study in straight economics: New business always beats no business.

Tex Haeuser, South Portland's planning director, said he plans to withdraw the moratorium proposal and will ask the council to amend the city ordinances to require tattoo parlors and body-piercing shops to be licensed.

City Councilor Claude Morgan said the city may have been caught unawares by Beaudoin's plans but hadn't had any reason to talk about tattoo shops in the past.

Morgan – who admits to having a tattoo – says he does not favor banning tattoo parlors and thinks the shops could be a new boost to the local economy.

Though he thinks South Portland will take time to create the right ordinance, he hopes the city can send a positive message to artists.

"The thinking in my own mind is that (a tattoo shop) falls under creative economy," he said. "And that's nothing to be scared of."

Meanwhile, in Standish, Infinity Tattoo opened the first week of June and has seen a steady stream of customers since. "This," Beaudoin says behind the counter of his new shop in Standish, "was a blessing in disguise."

Beaudoin has traveled around a bit and run shops in Florida and New Hampshire. He got his first tattoo as a teenager, when he began selling his drawings as designs to a shop in Portland. He got paid in tattoos.

Having long hair and an arm of tattoos have made him familiar with misconceptions. But he says the reaction from South Portland officials really caught him off guard.

Beaudoin said he knows tattoos have a stigma attached to them. But it's a stigma that is a few decades outdated, not to mention wrong, he said.

"It was outlaws and bikers and rowdy sailors that got them," he said.

Nowadays it's just about anyone – teachers, cooks, young and old. Beaudoin said people would be surprised by who's interested in getting inked.

Last week, Mark Wildes of Portland came into the shop to get a new tattoo. It's the baby footprints of his now 2-year-old son, Riley.

As he prepared to work on Wildes, Jensen said more people are beginning to see tattoos as art because of the distinctiveness and work that goes into them.

People come to tattoo parlors with their own drawings or work with tattoo artists to develop something special, sometimes taking several sessions, he said.

As burned as they are, the two say South Portland's loss is Standish's gain.

Jensen said the space they were looking at in South Portland would have been big enough to have an art gallery and given tattoo artists a space to share their other works, similar to other shops around the Portland area.

Though they may be more of a destination now in...