Councilmember Shaun Abreu, the bill’s lead sponsor, called tattoos a form of personal self-expression that often incur bias and discrimination from employers, landlords and service providers.
“We don’t need any artificial barriers to getting jobs or housing,” said Abreu, who plans to introduce the legislation to the City Council on Friday.
There are exceptions though, such as with tattoos that contain hate speech or “vulgarity,” as determined by the City Human Rights Commission, according to Abreu.introduced last spring that aims to codify prohibiting discrimination based on a person’s height or weight in employment, housing and access to public services. But the measure has not moved out of committee since it was introduced in April.
Brannan, who has many tattoos of his own, said he acquired some of his first tattoos in the 1990s, a time when tattooing in New York City was still illegal.