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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JANUARY 8, 2016
PARTING SHOT FROM EDWARD STRATTON
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A rare look outside from a U.S. Coast Guard C-130 Hercules monitoring the crab fleet off the coast.
ODDITY
‘Nibblin’ on sponge cake,
watchin’ the sun bake ...’
Judges channel Buffett
song in court ruling
Associated Press
KEY WEST. Fla. — A Virginia man
who wants to open up a tattoo parlor in
Key West can thank Jimmy Buffett’s
“Margaritaville” for helping him with
his latest court case.
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song in opposition to Brad Buehrle’s
proposal for a new tattoo shop, saying
drunken tourists would be more likely to
get tattoos and then regret it if more ink
shops were open in Key West’s historic
district.
But the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals said the city misunderstood the
song lyrics in which the languorous nar-
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how the “Mexican cutie” got there, “I
haven’t a clue.”
The judges wrote in a footnote to
their ruling that the character in the song
deems his new tattoo “a real beauty” and
seems far from embarrassed about it.
The appeals court ruled last week
that the city failed to show that more tat-
too shops would erode the historic dis-
trict’s “character and fabric,” The Key
West Citizen reported.
According to the ruling, the city
feared that “rash tourists will obtain re-
Creative Commons
grettable tattoos, leading to negative as-
sociation with Key West.”
Tattoo parlors were banned within
Key West city limits until 2007, when
the city amended zoning rules to allow a
limited number of them. Currently, two
tattoo shops operate there and “the city
concedes the absence of any ill effect as
a result” of them, according to the rul-
ing.
Buehrle, who operates a tattoo shop
in Richmond, Virginia, had asked the
city to issue a permit allowing him
to open another business in a historic
stretch of Duval Street.
Buehrle’s attorney, Wayne LaRue
Smith, said that he “doesn’t believe for a
minute that there’s any adverse effects”
remotely possible.
The appeals court sent the case back
to district court for more proceedings
consistent with its opinion.