New Bedford, MA Business Licensing & Operations: Tattoo & Body Modification (2026)

Section 4210 requires a special permit from the Zoning Board of Appeals before any building can be used as a body art establishment, and allows that use only within Business, Mixed Use, Business Planned, Industrial A, B or C, or Waterfront Industrial districts; no special permit may ever be granted for a location in a residential district. The same section fixes operating hours: no body art establishment may operate between 10:00 p.m. and 10:00 a.m., and a granted permit cannot be transferred to a new owner, establishment, or location.

Section 4212 gives the Zoning Board authority to attach reasonable conditions to protect health, safety and welfare, though it cannot impose screening stricter than Sections 4250-4252 require unless the establishment has already violated those screening rules. Procedurally, the Board must notify the Board of Health and Police Department in writing within five days of granting a permit, and must hold a duly advertised public hearing before granting one. An establishment or affected person can request written clarification of imposed conditions, or appeal a Building Commissioner enforcement decision to the Board of Appeals, for a fee the Board may set up to $50 for each type of request.

Section 4220 imposes separation distances: a body art establishment must sit outside a 200-foot radius from any school, child care facility or church, and outside a 1,000-foot radius from any other body art establishment. Section 4230 measures that radius as a straight line between the nearest points of the affected parcels. A later addition, Section 4231, exempts establishments performing only microblading, with no other body art or piercing, from both the separation-distance and radius rules. Section 4252 further requires that any body art work exposing genitals, pubic areas, buttocks or female breasts be fully screened from outside view and from anyone inside who has not consented to viewing it.