SPANISH FORT, Alabama (GCN)—On the same night the Spanish Fort City Council considered changing its zoning laws to effectively ban tattoo parlors inside city limits, the Fairhope Planning Commission recommended that such businesses be allowed in certain zoning districts there.

The council in Spanish Fort heard impassioned testimony on both sides of the issue at a public hearing Monday but delayed a vote until April 15.

The owners of Slow Fade Studio, located just outside city limits in Spanish Fort, said after the meeting that they would be back at the next council meeting to show opposition to the proposed change in zoning laws. Although it would not impact their business immediately, they said, the proposed change was not good for the city economically and was actually an indictment of people wearing tattoos, which they thought behind the times.

Council members disagreed and noted that a Spanish Fort Planning Commission member who supported the proposed zoning law change sports a tattoo himself. The council had taken up the issue after the commission sent its unanimous favorable recommendation to them, which was prompted by requests from residents, the mayor said.

The Spanish Fort city attorney stated that the current geographical and zoning configuration of the city did not lend itself to such businesses, suggesting that the proposed change was not intended as a prohibition as such. He said depending on how the city grows in the future, the law could be changed to allow such businesses in certain zoning districts.

In Daphne last month, the city attorney there said an outright ban on some adult-themed businesses could face a successful legal challenge.

A final decision on the Fairhope commission’s unanimous recommendation Monday that tattoo parlors in allowed in certain business districts will be made by the council there.

Although some Spanish Fort council members made a point Monday of saying they were not opposed to tattoos themselves, one man who spoke in favor of the zoning law change took a different view.

“If the good Lord would have wanted marks on us, he would have put them there,” Jimmy Ashcraft said after the meeting.