North Charleston, SC Business Licensing & Operations: Tattoo & Body Modification (2026)

Section 5-5 lists tattoo parlors as a permitted use in the M-1 light industrial district under (a)(12), but subsection (b)(5) layers on a locational condition treated as a conditional use restriction: a tattoo parlor may not be established within 1,000 feet of the property line of a church or other place of worship, a residential district boundary or residential use, a public park adjacent to a residential district or school, a residential lot, or land used for academic, extracurricular or recreational purposes by a public or private elementary or secondary school.

The measurement runs in a straight line, ignoring any intervening buildings or terrain, from the nearest wall of the tattoo parlor building to the nearest property line of the protected use. The section includes a nonconforming-use protection: a tattoo parlor lawfully operating under a valid business license does not become nonconforming just because a church, school, park, residential district or residential lot later moves within 1,000 feet, though that protection only carries through a valid license renewal and does not apply if the license has already expired or been revoked before the new use arrived.

M-1 is a light industrial district reserved for construction trades, service businesses, warehousing and similar uses along transportation corridors, buffered from residential areas, which is why tattoo parlors, along with sexually oriented businesses under Section 4-14, are confined there rather than to commercial corridors.