Yonkers, NY Business Licensing & Operations: Tattoo & Body Modification (2026)

Yonkers does not run a separate tattoo-parlor license or health-permit chapter in this code; instead the restriction is written directly into the zoning definitions in Section 43-8. The TATTOO ESTABLISHMENT entry classifies a tattoo shop as a personal service establishment for zoning purposes, meaning it is generally allowed wherever that category of use is permitted in the Schedule of Use Regulations, subject to whatever site plan or special use review applies to personal service establishments in that particular district. Layered on top of that classification is a citywide spacing rule found nowhere else in the definitions list: no tattoo establishment shall be located closer than 500 feet to any other such establishment, with the 500 feet measured from the lot lines of the respective establishments, not from the buildings or the doors.

Because the rule is measured lot line to lot line, an applicant needs a survey or the City's own distance calculation before opening a second shop near an existing one, and the Bureau of Housing and Buildings checks this distance as part of any certificate of occupancy or use permit review for the personal-service classification. Body-modification uses not defined separately in this chapter, such as piercing-only studios, fall under the general personal service establishment definition without the 500-foot rule attached unless they are also operated as tattoo establishments.