Victorian tattoo studios are bracing for new licensing laws similar to those that banish bikie affiliates from working in the industry in other states.
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While many artists and owners support formal regulation, they say the mandatory licensing rules recently adopted in Queensland and NSW unfairly tarnish their trade by focusing on the minority criminal element.
Greg Hoskins, an industry veteran of more than 30 years and the owner of the Ink Up studio in Thomastown, also criticised the laws for failing to include competency requirements for practitioners in line with other trades.
Victoria Police and the state government have confirmed they are in talks over a suite of new measures aimed at disrupting bikie business activities. Mr Hoskins said he believed it was only a matter of time before a tattoo industry licensing scheme, mirroring other states, was introduced in Victoria.
Under the Queensland regulations, the Commissioner of Police can determine whether an applicant is ''a fit and proper person'' to hold a licence, while the NSW laws exclude controlled members of criminal organisations.
A group of Victorians, including Tashi Dukanovic, the owner of Green Lotus Tattoo in Brunswick, are in the process of establishing a local branch of the Tattooists Guild of Australia. They're also preparing a submission for government on what form they would like to see any new regulations take.
''Change is upon us, we need to roll with it and it's a positive thing,'' Ms Dukanovic said. ''We need regulation, we need standards but we don't want to be labelled as criminals.''
The state government and Victoria Police have been discussing ''possible further initiatives to tackle the activities of criminal bikie and similar gangs,'' a government spokesman said in response to questions about regulating the tattoo industry.
Detective Superintendent Peter De Santo, from the anti-bikie Echo Taskforce, said police intelligence suggests there are several organised motorcycle gangs linked to tattoo parlours in Victoria.
''We know OMCGs have a footprint in many industries including the transport sector, private security industry, debt collection and the tattoo parlour industry,'' he said.
''We're in discussions with government in relation to a whole range of legislation and regulation of industries of which OMCGs have a presence in.''
Detectives raided the Victims of Ink Tattoo studio in Port Melbourne in April, which is run by Mongol bikie Mark Graham, 28, who is on bail for an attempted murder charge. Mr Graham was charged over the high-profile Queensland mall shooting of another bikie with interests in a tattoo parlour, at the Robina Town Centre in May 2012. The shooting left a 53-year-old female bystander with a bullet wound in the pelvis and the Bandidos' Jacques Teamo with a shoulder wound. The Port Melbourne studio and its partner on Chapel Street are owned by a company called Hopkins Advisory Pty Ltd, of which the sole director, shareholder and secretary is 23-year-old Queensland man believed to be a relative of Mr Graham.
The former Nitro Ink tattoo studio turned Passion 4 Pain in Dandenong, linked to a prominent Comanchero, was sprayed with 24 bullets, fired from a high-powered military-grade weapon, in October 2013. Former Comanchero Samson Bazi, one of two men believed to have established the club in Melbourne, also had an interest in a tattoo parlour in Hampton Park in 2013, court documents reveal.