Wailua traffic helps tattoo shop

Who says Wailua traffic sucks? Not Mike Fuse and Tom “T” Gambino, partners in Island Tattoo II & Body Piercing at the Wailua Business Center.

The juncture at Wailua, at Kuhio Highway and Haleilio Road makai of the entrance to Wailua Houselots, near the Shell station at the Wailua Business Center, is the perfect location for a shop, says T, because the traffic bottleneck that occurs there on any given day forces people into his new shop in droves.

“This is the perfect location, because people are literally stopping by all the time,” he said. “The traffic has done great things for us.”

T and Fuse figure their clients are about half local, half tourist, but they’re not asking for identification cards. That’s because, after only two months in business, Island Tattoo II is raking in some $2,000 per day with three full-time artists, including T.

“This isn’t your typical tattoo shop,” T said, “but more like the combination between an art gallery and coffee shop.”

Indeed, Moon Lake and Joanne Steel, the others who make up Island Tattoo II, consider themselves artists, and charge a minimum of $50, but can produce pieces that run in the thousands of dollars.

“Some people just want a little something, and others want something that takes them back to their tribes,” T said.

It’s the kind of lingo that has made tattoo artists a modern version of tribal shaman, helping people to reconnect with their ancient, tribal roots, or to express themselves in ways only an artist could envision.

“As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end,” says T.

Using sterile, new needles and “autoclave,” high-pressure, hospital-quality equipment, the 37-year-old T cuts and pierces everyone from cops to ex-cons, he said. His most famous work, he recalled, was a full-body tattoo that cost its wearer upwards of $10,000. But that was back in a different time, in a different place, when, thanks to Uncle Sam, business boomed at the Wahiawa location of Island Tattoo.

The streams of money suddenly dried up last year when the U.S. Army deployed some 10,000 troops from Schofield Barracks in Wahiawa, the location of the original Island Tattoo, where T worked.

“I left just before the deployment, and just at the right time,” T said. He could smell it coming, he said, and decided to head out for a simpler way of life on Kaua‘i.

“People told me not to come to Kaua‘i because there’s nothing to do here except go to the beach,” he said, “and that’s exactly what I was looking for.”

It’s a good thing for Tattoo II owner Fuse that he did, too.

Fuse, a 50-year-old tattoo artist and owner of the still-operating Island Tattoo in Wahiawa on O‘ahu, felt the sting of the massive deployment almost immediately. He knew he had do to something quick.

“The base was nearly empty,” Fuse recalled. “They’d deployed nearly 10,000 soldiers from the base to Afghanistan and Iraq, so the Wahiawa economy is really hurting.”

With over 70 percent of his business coming from military personnel, Fuse decided to expand — to Kaua‘i, of all places. It’s an interesting development, considering that it’s often the opposite, with Kaua‘i businesses expanding to O‘ahu.

Fuse’s motivation is two-fold, he now admits: to take advantage of a burgeoning Eastside Kaua‘i tourist economy, with “lots of young people,” while enjoying his weekly visits to an island he said is quickly becoming his favorite.

Meanwhile, the day-to-day operations on Kaua‘i are handled by T, Fuse’s right-hand man in Wahiawa.

“I found this location and thought it would be a really good opportunity for us all,” T said. With a rent of only $1,000 per month, don’t expect Island Tattoo II to be moving anywhere else anytime soon. They’ll be taking advantage of Wailua’s infamously infuriating bottleneck, while reeling in tattoo-loving hipsters who don’t mind paying for a permanent memento of their Kaua‘i vacation.

Phil Hayworth, business editor, may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 251) or phayworth@pulitzer.net.