A Tale of Taboo Tattoos

Mother’s Market in Huntington Beach isn’t the kind of place where you would expect a prohibition on tattoos. It’s a trendy health-food store in an informal beach town, and until recently, employees showed off their flowers, tribal patterns and birds without worrying about a reprimand.

But after a recent customer complaint, the grocery has been enforcing its 3-year-old policy requiring employees to cover their body art.

“We introduced this law at a time where tattoos were really peaking in popularity, and a lot of people, including employees, seemed to have them,” said Geri Polk, president of Mother’s, a local chain of four stores. “For us, this brought on complaints by customers [who] were offended--so we decided to make a policy.”

The policy has been diligently enforced in the company’s Costa Mesa, Laguna Beach and Irvine stores, managers said. However, the managers--all of whom asked that their names not be used--said the Huntington Beach store took a looser approach to the rule. Of the store’s 107 employees, about 75% are tattooed, management said.

Polk would not comment on how many customer complaints there have been or what the complaints were.

Those who show their tattoos risk being written up, managers said. Three write-ups can lead to being fired, but each situation is judged individually, they said.

Polk would not comment on whether anyone has been fired over this issue.

The Huntington Beach store is frequented by a clientele that embraces alternative fads and fashions. Customers often display tattoos and body piercings.

Mark Evans, who has been shopping at Mother’s for nine years, has tattoos covering a large portion of his body.

The 32-year-old said he doesn’t know whether the policy is right or wrong, but having tattoos means being judged all the time. His solution is to wear long sleeves and avoid the hassles.

“I clean pools for a living, and I have to wear long sleeves. So I understand why they are having to cover up,” Evans said. “Ultimately, tattoos are scary to people who don’t understand that it’s just art.”

Fountain Valley resident Herb Frers, 70, has been a regular customer at Mother’s for many years. Frers said he does not like tattoos, but they don’t keep him away from any store.

“If these people are compliant and courteous, and the ones that I’ve dealt with are,” he said, “then it keeps me coming back.”

For Vanessa Bernstein, who works in the deli section, enforcement of the rule has meant wearing a bandage to cover her arm from wrist to elbow on a day when she did not have a long-sleeved shirt.

“I was aware of the tattoo policy when Mother’s interviewed me,” said Bernstein, a four-month employee. “But when you’re moving a lot, you get hot and irritable. We should be able to be comfortable.”

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For many at Mother’s, the problem is not so much the rule itself but how strictly it is being enforced.

Cashier Letty Hana said she was told by a manager to put a bandage on the inside of her upper left arm to cover a small part of a tattoo that peeked out from under a short sleeve when she raised her arm.

Polk said that each store has a management team responsible for day-to-day operations and that they aren’t trying to be unreasonable.

“If the management at the Huntington Beach store enforced the policy that firmly, then maybe they were being a little too strict,” Polk said. “We certainly don’t instruct them to be that strict.”

Tattooed employee Caleb Cuningham, 25, said he also suffers from the heat sometimes with the long sleeves he must wear.

“I think it’s more offensive when people are not well-kempt or their breath stinks,” Cuningham said.