Does anyone care about small businesses anymore? Or have we completely transformed into a Socialist state precisely as Brother Beck warned? First they took away the ingenious MetroCard innovator. Now, CBS reports that a 17-year-old Suffolk County girl was arrested for running a tattoo and piercing parlor out of her bedroom. Authorities are claiming that Carisma Thompson-Pike advertised her skills on Facebook, and charged $5 to $200 for her services.
Suffolk County police found tools of the trade like tattoo guns and ink in Thompson-Pike's Central Islip home, and were tipped off to her business model by a concerned parent. She's being charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child and two counts of unlawfully dealing with a minor because she allegedly gave two 15-year-olds tattoos. Presumably, her most popular designs were "Every Day is Pizza Day" written in gothic script, and a scene of a dolphin jumping over a sunset that means "rainbow" in Kanji.
Thompson-Pike has been released on bail, but if she wants to keep tattooing folks, she should head down to D.C., where tattoo parlors (for now) are essentially an unregulated business.
