19 years ago Clovis got its first tattoo shop. The story is now a survival guide

Clovis Ink Tattoo isn’t exactly a foot-traffic kind of place.

It’s tucked in a parking lot just off Shaw Avenue near Villa, in a converted metal warehouse where they used to built custom 4x4s. Save for a faded sign near the entry driveway from the street, the place is barely visible to traffic passing by on the thoroughfare.

That’s sort of by design.

After all, this was the first tattoo shop in Clovis, and its opening came after a year of public debate and city council wrangling.

“We had to fight against the city to become part of this community,” says Daniel Rudolfo Acosta III, who opened the shop with his late father back in 2007.

Clovis Ink was originally envisioned as an upscale establishment with “a clientele of doctors and lawyers and professionals as well as cancer survivors and others with permanent makeup needs,” according to a story in The Fresno Bee at the time.

Acosta was the artist. He’d done painting, drawing and graffiti before taking an interest in tattooing.

His father, Rudy Acosta Jr., was also a tattooer, but mostly a support system for his son. He took Acosta to his first tattoo convention at the Palladium in Los Angeles and lent him the money to buy his first tattoo machine.

It’s still on display in the shop.

It was Acosta Jr. who had the idea to open the shop in Clovis, specifically in Old Town.

Immediately there were questions whether the business (and those that would follow) would fit with the nostalgic pull of the area and complementary nature of existing businesses. There were also fears it would damage the sense of security in the district. As longtime resident Peg Bos said, in delivering a petition opposing the shop: “In Old Town we have something unique in the county, perhaps in the state. ... That heritage must be protected.”

The ensuing controversy over whether the shop could even open, and where, left the business $10,000 in debt before it even started, Acosta says.

They paid nearly $3,000 for Clovis city staff to research tattoo shop ordinances in other municipalities before crafting their own. The city denied Clovis Ink a spot Old Town and then raised the cost of the permit from $1,625 to $5,500 while the shop went looking for a suitable new location, according a story in The Bee.

Acosta Jr. asked the city to refund the research fees and the permit increase. The council said no.

“It was a battle,” Acosta says.

In the end, the city did add provisions for body art establishments into its development code.

Enacted in October 2006, it remains in place, requiring tattoo shops be in commercial or light manufacturing zones and subject to conditional use permit. While there are no specific buffer zones that would keep a tattoo shop from opening in Old Town Clovis (or near schools) “these areas are generally zoned for other uses, which do not allow Body Art Establishments,” the city told The Bee this week.

Nearly two decades of Clovis Ink Tattoo

When Clovis Ink opened in May 2007, there were three artists in the building.

Over 19 years, Acosta estimates at least a dozen artists learned the trade by working at Clovis Ink. Many of them have gone on to open their own shops in the area.

“If it wasn’t for him, none of us would be tattooing here,” Acosta says, of his father.

“He was the one that opened that door.”

Currently, there are six artists at Clovis Ink; four tattooers and two body piercers, each with a small work station cordoned off from the rest of the shop, which Acosta and his father designed and built to look like an old Japanese village. The waiting room out front is filled wall-to-wall with curio cabinets of oddity art, taxidermy, bones and skulls, and memorabilia. In one glass box is a folded pair of jeans and work boots; the clothes that Acosta’s father worn while helping convert the shop.

“This is 19 year of my tattooing,” Acosta says.

“There is history in this building.”

A tattoo shop survival guide

A few years back, Acosta started putting together the story of his shop. He chronicled, almost journal style, all the things he learned and wished he had learned sooner, writing it all down until it got to be too tedious.

Then, he started using an AI tool, just telling it his stories. What came out became the basis for “Kings of Flesh,” a tattoo shop survival guide.

On the desk at his work station are a stack of books — the versions Acosta had printed up before settling in on the final copy, which is still not quite right. There’s a new version on the way, Acosta says.

The book is 60 or so pages, broken into nine chapters that outline what it takes to run a success tattoo shop.

This is not a tattoo how-to, Acosta says. It’s about understanding the industry. Some of it is logistical, technical even. How to deal with filing taxes or what to do when the health department shows up for an inspection. But it’s also about the soft skills, like building relationships and taking advantage of opportunities, without taking advantage of those giving them.

“It’s about how to become a better person,” Acosta says.

And it’s not the only tattoo-related side hustle Acosta has working. He’s also creating a mobile app to connect artists with clients and has developed a line of aftercare products called Simpl Humn. Those products are available now and almost ready to start shipping out into tattoo shops.

“My mind is always trying to come up with things,” Acosta says.

“It’s just moving forward. Like my father taught me.”