Newark, OH Business Licensing & Operations: Tattoo & Body Modification (2026)

Newark regulates tattoo shops through zoning district lists. Section 1261.02 is the permitted uses section for the HB High Intensity Business District, whose purpose in Section 1261.01 is the orderly development of retail, hospitality, and office land uses of limited size. Subsection (a) pulls in the uses permitted in Section 1260.02 (MB, LB, GO, CSI), and the remaining subsections name entertainment and recreation uses, hotels and motels in (c), tattoo shops in (d), greenhouses or commercial nurseries in (e), restaurants and eating or drinking establishments, residential uses, antennas and recycle collection points. Because tattoo shops sit on the permitted list, they do not need a conditional use hearing in that district.

The district standards still apply to the building. Section 1261.06 caps the gross floor area devoted to business use at 15,000 square feet and caps the combined footprint of all buildings on a lot at thirty-five percent of the lot area, exclusive of floodway. New construction and additions are reviewed by the Planning Commission against the City's current Development Regulations. Section 1261.07 limits structures to two stories or thirty-five feet. The Section 1261.08 table lists, for all uses, lot area None, lot frontage 75, front yard 30, side yard 15, rear yard 25 and 25 feet between any two buildings, with the side yard rising to twenty-five and the rear yard to forty when the lot adjoins an R-District.

The Downtown District goes the other way. Section 1265.021 says that, notwithstanding the permitted uses in Section 1265.01, certain uses are prohibited in the DC Downtown District, and subsection (c) is tattoo shops. The same list bars automobile major repairs, pawn shops, truck and heavy vehicle services, cannabis businesses, and vape and tobacco shops. The code file for the City of Newark, Ohio contains no separate tattoo or body art licensing chapter, so the zoning lists are the whole local rule.