“We were doing the impossible:” Signal Hill’s first and only tattoo shop shutters its doors

Signal Hill Tattoo, the city’s first and only tattoo shop, closed its doors for good last month after eight years of service. 

“[Signal Hill] welcomed us with open arms. Being two kids that came from Poly [High School], grew up in Long Beach, we weren’t going to make it big. I mean, we’re nobody special,” Signal Hill Tattoo co-owner Ed Vargas said. “To be able to have done that is amazing.”

Tattoo shops are emerging from a particularly rough year. As restaurants and bars adapted to changing COVID-19 health guidelines, tattoo shops remained largely shuttered.

For Vargas and his partner Sonny Daniel, the shop’s closure marks the end of an era, one that began with a $1,000 fine and transformed into a home away from home. 

“I was going to open up a tattoo shop. I was going to do the impossible,” Vargas said. “[Signal Hill] gave me a chance.”

Ed Vargas shares how a $1,000 fine for tattooing in a garage became a fully-fledged studio

Vargas didn’t start his business out of entrepreneurial spirit.

“We had no clue what business entailed or entrepreneurship… we had no clue,” Vargas said. “We were doing the impossible in the impossible city.”

Around 2012, his lifelong friend Sonny Daniel was caught illegally tattooing out of his garage in Signal Hill. He received a ticket with a $1,000 fine. 

“We’re both single parents,” Vargas said. “No way we could afford a $1,000 ticket.”

So he went to Signal Hill City Hall. 

There, he said, a member of the city government told him that, rather than paying the fee, there was another option: “Why don’t you guys try to open up a tattoo shop instead?”

Daniel had been tattooing since 1994 and, after decades of work, knew enough tattoo artists to fill the shop. Their “pipe dream” could become a reality, with a little legwork. 

Vargas had to get community feedback to start his project, a survey traditionally done by a consulting company. He didn’t know that.

So he went door to door, to every business and residence in a 1,000-foot radius of the prospective shop location. 

“I didn’t know what to do. I gave them all my paperwork, and they’re like, ‘What’s this?’ ‘I surveyed the city,’” Vargas said with a chuckle. “They laughed at me.”

The consulting company waived their fee, charging less than $2 for an envelope and postage stamp to mail his forms to the City. 

The creation of the shop was a labor of love, Vargas said, fueled by “blood, sweat and tears.” Over the course of a year, friends and acquaintances lent their time to build the shop.

A contractor would build out the shop for free, as long as Vargas would provide the supplies. 

A friend who worked at Signal Hill Petroleum would help install epoxy floors—a health inspector’s “dream come true”—using the same substance that lines the interior of gas tanks. 

A construction company sent over a man named “Nacho,” who would spend six days hammering out concrete flooring to make room for new plumbing.

When he asked about payment, he said they all responded the same: “Just open up your shop.”

They spent nearly a year navigating the business licensing process, a flurry of forms and guidelines that can be daunting even for experienced business owners. 

It didn’t help that, while getting the shop up to snuff with local health codes, Vargas had used the Long Beach Health Department as a resource. 

When he was ready to move forward, he had a sudden realization: Signal Hill isn’t part of Long Beach, it’s part of Los Angeles County. 

“That’s a whole different ball game. It’s a whole different set of rules,” he said. “It’s like, man, this is crazy.”

When the Los Angeles County health inspector came out to review the building, Vargas recalled the inspector telling him: “This is not what you’re supposed to find at a tattoo shop.”

Cue panic. He worried that, after going “overboard” adhering to the guidelines of two different health departments, they’d have to restart the process. 

What the inspector said surprised him: “Do you mind if I come over here with all of my inspectors to show them what a tattoo shop is supposed to look like?”

He gave the inspector a pair of keys. “Drop by anytime!”

Months of effort were finally coming to fruition. Signal Hill would soon have its first-ever tattoo shop. 

“It was tremendous for us, ‘cause we’re just a couple kids that grew up in Long Beach not having a clue, trying to avoid a $1,000 fine,” Vargas said. 

Community embraces tattoo shop

Two months after the shop had first opened, Vargas and Daniel held a grand opening, complete with live music, a “giant” suckling pig, a taco stand and a low-rider show.

The shop was less than two miles away from a fire station. 

“I’m thinking, we probably already got a fire violation with all these [expletive] cars that kept showing up that we had no control over,” he said. 

He thought they’d shut the whole thing down. They didn’t.

“They come by and they turn on their little siren and they wave and welcome us to the neighborhood,” he said. “Cops show up just a little bit later, and they just wanted to see what the tattoo shop looked like.”

Signal Hill Tattoo would become a mainstay in the community. Council members would drop by to check out the shop and “leave happy, smiles, like ‘It’s beautiful. It’s clean,’” Vargas said. Police officers who patrolled the area would later be tattooed by his artists. 

Even the Signal Tribune’s former publisher, Neena Strichart, would eventually fulfill her promise of getting a tattoo, Vargas said. 

The shop grew, slowly but surely, over the course of eight years. 

“We wanted to make it so we treat everybody as if they were the best,” Vargas said. “They really were, because everybody has a story and everybody’s story is unique.” 

After working the front desk for three years, he had met hundreds of Signal Hill and Long Beach residents. Though he’s not a tattoo artist himself, Vargas began to realize the therapeutic nature of tattooing. 

“For some reason, I don’t know why, people love to share when they’re getting tattooed,” he said. “It’s like you’re their psychiatrist, you’re their doctor, you’re their counselor, you’re everything […] It was neat to see it grow, to flourish.”

The pandemic’s toll

Friday the 13th would become the shop’s Black Friday “like Best Buy, with people camping out,” Vargas said. Artists would collectively ink 500 flash tattoos in a single day. 

Friday, March 13, 2020, was meant to follow that tradition. 

But just two days before, Los Angeles County reported its first coronavirus death. Gov. Gavin Newsom urged residents to avoid large gatherings. Classes at CSULB and Long Beach schools went online. Three days later, Los Angeles County would order the closure of bars, gyms and entertainment centers. 

At first, Vargas said, he thought it was a joke. 

But after 30 days of closure, the somber reality set in. 

“So a month goes by, no income,” Vargas said. “I’m paying the rent out of my own savings. The savings for the shop dwindled fast.”

The shop, once filled with the rumbling buzz of tattoo guns, lay silent for nine months. 

“It was a big blow,” Vargas said. “Because if we were already kind of barely making it, that was gonna definitely cut our throats.” 

Signal Hill Tattoo did receive a first round of stimulus funds for businesses—enough to cover about three months of rent.

But the shop didn’t qualify for the paycheck protection program, as the shop’s tattoo artists worked under contract. 

Nor did the business qualify for a loan, and Vargas didn’t have the finances to pull out a personal loan. 

In March of this year, Vargas was faced with a decision.

“I had to shut down the business account. My personal accounts: zero. My business partner, down to zero,” Vargas said. He recalled his partner telling him, “Everytime I see you, you’re stressed out.”

“We stretched out 16 more days, trying to figure out if we could relocate, how much it would take,” he said. 

A potential relocation would take at least a year, and thrust Vargas and his partner into another pile of licensing paperwork during a time when he said LA County “wasn’t even entertaining brand new tattoo shops.”

“We didn’t really have an option,” he said. 

On April 15, 2021, the Signal Hill Tattoo Instagram page—usually plastered in fresh ink and intricate design work—was marked by a bright red image.

“WE ARE SORRY PERMANENT CLOSURE DUE TO COVID-19.”

Inking about the future

Despite the closure of Signal Hill Tattoo, Vargas looks fondly at the past eight years. 

He thinks of his parents, both immigrants from Mexico, who left their country to give Vargas opportunities in America. 

“My motivation was their sacrifice,” he said. “I wanted to be able to say, ‘Hey, you know, your struggle was worth it.’”

Thousands of tattoos later, the legacy of the Signal Hill Tattoo lives on in the lifelong artwork plastered on the arms, legs, backs and appendages of all that made their way through the shop. 

“This shop was my piece of the American pie,” he said. “To be able to open up a business, I think that’s what my folks came here for, to give us that opportunity […] It was great to be able to fulfill that.” 

Residents can find Signal Hill Tattoo’s former artists on Instagram at: @tattoobysonny, @ariana78, @gaunch, @moskalb, @pacificsoulx562, and @chestolbc.