Miya Bailey was in a celebratory mood Wednesday evening after receiving word from an Atlanta official he declined to name that his beloved tattoo studio and art gallery, City of Ink, is “no longer in violation” of city zoning laws.
“I really appreciate everybody who had a hand in helping out in this situation,” Bailey, 50, told Capital B Atlanta. “I’m very thankful, man.”
The news came more than three months after Atlanta zoning authorities issued a stop work order against City of Ink — located in the 300 block of Walker Street in Castleberry Hill — for allegedly violating a 2008 zoning ordinance barring certain types of businesses, including tattoo and piercing shops, from opening in the residential southwest Atlanta neighborhood.
City of Ink has become a cultural landmark and epicenter of Atlanta’s artistic community since launching nearly two decades ago. Bailey said the studio has helped raise money to kickstart additional nearby showrooms, including the Old Rabbit Art Gallery and the Hidden Gallery.
The stop work order came after Bailey began renovating City of Ink. He’s not sure why the city sought to close his business now, but he speculated efforts to gentrify the neighborhood may have played a role.
“What makes anybody want to enforce an old ordinance [nearly] 20 years later?” Bailey said.
Once members of the community learned about the attempt to permanently close City of Ink, they made their objections known at City Hall and on social media.
Related posts on Bailey’s Instagram account have received thousands of likes and comments. One of them came from Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, who announced plans to intervene.
“Got it. Understood. I See it. Tagged. Received. Looking into it. Standby,” the mayor commented on the July 10 post.
The mayor’s office confirmed Dickens’ involvement via email on Thursday in City of Ink’s zoning dilemma as well as conversations he’s had with Bailey since then, but declined to say why Atlanta officials allegedly began pursuing the business’s closure in the first place.
“Several staffers have been working with Miya and his landlord,” a Dickens spokesperson wrote in a Thursday email. “This is obviously a complicated property matter — predating this administration — that we are working toward the best and swiftest solution for all involved.”
Used appliance store owner Steve Mitchell of Lithonia is the listed owner of City of Ink’s building, according to Fulton County Board of Assessors records. Mitchell told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last year that he hadn’t used the building in which City of Ink is located since relocating his own appliance business in 2000.
In 2006, Mitchell said he agreed to rent parts of the building to Bailey because he was impressed by Bailey’s business acumen.
“He sounded real good and talked real professional,” Mitchell told the AJC in an article published in February 2024. “He modified it a little bit, for what he wanted to use it for.”
Bailey and his supporters don’t believe the 2008 zoning ordinance applies to City of Ink since the business opened a year before the zoning measure was signed into law. The related Atlanta Board of Zoning appeals hearing Bailey was scheduled to attend on Thursday was also postponed indefinitely on Wednesday, city officials confirmed.
City of Ink’s store location will remain closed until renovations are done, but its tattoo artists are continuing their work at other private locations, according to a staffer. Bailey said the nine artists who left City of Ink after it was closed are welcome to return to their jobs there once it reopens.
