tattoo shop morals

hello i own a small shop with alot of return customers and mostly black people and hispanics.a couple months ago i was doing a piece on one of my clients when all of the sudden five bikers steped in and started a bunch of trouble scaring three customers out of the shop and tering my shop apart yelling your taking my fn bussiness away you f---g wet back why do we have to live in aworld where we have to protect our selves from scum like this because of our dreams and love for art please give me some info .my wife called 911 and they where arrested and then come to find out they where from another shop about 30 minutes away what should i do since then they have begun a campain to slander me to the ground

I would say you need to seek out legal advice on this matter. Sounds like you have your hands full... Good luck

Did you open your shop very close to an artists that has been there for a while.Because i dont understand why someone would say your takeing buisness away from them if they were not there first.No matter what that was not cool for them to do.If you did open were someone has been for a while and has developed there buisness thats not cool either.I hope you can work out your differences.

I didnt see what you said about being 30 minutes away.That it plenty of space between shops.I dont no but that sounds like bullshit.Good luck Sometimes artist get people that dont no what they are doing that buy some bullshit machines and open down the block.That can be anoiying.Like i said before It still is not cool what they did even though i sometimes have to admit that i would like to do that to some of the people were i live.Good luck

You cant put up with shit like that. I've seen it happen over and over again. There is something about this trade that attracts people who think they can do what they want, either that or they surround themselves with people who spend the whole time licking their arses! Put it this way, if you let em push you around now it will never stop. It's a tough call but I would be inclined to (A) Hope the law can deal with it or (B) Front this guy up. See if he will meet you without his gang of mates and sort it out between yourselves. If he wont....................................Its up to you buddy but I know what I would do. Good luck

Pretty much agree with nick100 ya gotta take a stand somewhere....Now I am not advocating violence (although there sometimes comes a point where you are backed into a corner) I'm sayin first try to communicate with this guy.Then again we just got one side of the story...not saying anything disrespect ful man.Just give a good hard look at the situation objectively...when you opened did you show respect the old school way and go introduce yourself to the nearby shops?I guess many today just say fuck that and go ahead and open up without showing respect....I just came up the old way and sadly the old ways are rapidly eroding ...Good luck and better tattooing!...T

8 months ago I opened a shop a few blocks from another tattoo studio and only a few miles from 3 other shops. All of those shops have good, clean tattoo artists and so do we. We have tattooed the tattoo artists and their clients as well. The point is if you do good work, dont disrespect other shops by putting down their work, and are people friendly no one should have a problem....is the tattoo industry about art or power? People know who they want to be tattooed by and any artist that is trying to push out another is either scared of competition or has lack of talent.