Southfield, MI Business Licensing & Operations: Tattoo & Body Modification (2026)

Southfield City Code § 5.22-3.B.2 sits inside the Overlay Development District (ODD) article of the zoning chapter, and it names tattoo parlors as one of roughly two dozen uses the city has decided do not belong in an ODD. The section's own explanation is that these uses have been determined to be incompatible with the intent to provide the above permitted uses in an ODD, so the ban is not unexplained; it flows from the ODD's purpose of delivering a unified, pedestrian-oriented mix of retail, office and residential uses.

The prohibited-uses list groups tattoo parlors with other uses the city treats the same way, including pawn shops, check-cashing and pay-loan facilities, sexually oriented businesses, mobile home parks, funeral homes, crematoriums, cemeteries, dog kennels, motels, flea markets and medical marihuana facilities, the last one exempted specifically in the Northland ODD. Because the ban lives in the ODD article rather than the base zoning districts, it reaches only land the city has actually rezoned into an ODD, which today covers the Southfield Tech Corridor, City Centre, Downtown Development Authority subarea, Smart Zone, other ODD corridors and the Northland Subarea Redevelopment Plan ODD.

A tattoo studio proposing to open on a parcel carrying one of those overlay designations cannot get a site plan or building permit approved for that use, no matter how the underlying base district would otherwise treat personal-service businesses. Outside an ODD, the Code's own definition of personal services elsewhere in chapter 45 already lists tattoo shops among ordinary personal-service uses, so the practical effect of § 5.22-3.B.2 is to carve tattoo parlors back out specifically wherever the city has layered an ODD onto that base zoning.