A Nova Scotia tattoo parlour is nearly $9,000 dollars poorer after a small-claims court ruled against them this week in the case of a costly tattoo typo, the National Post reports. As it turns out, Newcombe’s Ink must pay Marie Huckle $8,992 a year and a half after one of their artists forgot that the word “Crossroads” had more than one “r.”
On Dec. 17, 2010, Ms. Huckle walked into Newcombe’s with a printout of the lettering “See You at the Crossroads” in gothic type, a tribute to a fallen friend. The problem was that her template was too big—and the shop’s printer was broken, to boot—so in retracing the type off the computer screen, the artist forgot the first “r.” Being that the tattoo was on her ribcage, and it looked backwards in the mirror, Huckle didn’t notice the missing letter until she came home and took this picture for her Facebook page. Furious with the misspelled ink, she wanted it removed immediately. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite work that way…
As per the Post‘s report, it sounds like Newcombe’s Ink co-owner Adam Spencer responded reasonably at first. “He refunded the cost of the tattoo and contacted a tattoo-removal technician. But after eight sessions, during which only ‘The Cossroads’ was removed, he stopped returning her calls, Ms. Huckle said.” Huckle reportedly refused the offer of a cover-up tattoo, and didn’t like the idea of having “When You Get There” tattooed over the faded ink. Guess she’s a bit too young to appreciate the anthemic quality of the Coolio classic… But in the end, it was ruled that the shop didn’t do enough. “The $8,992 settlement, handed down by adjudicator Eric K. Slone last month, will cover the additional sessions, medical supplies, travel and legal costs, and general damages,” according to the Post.
Alas, while I’m not willing to travel to Halifax unless you cover my expenses (my rider includes three cases of Big Rock and a bowl of brown M&Ms), I hereby offer my services as a tattoo copy editor to any tattoo parlours in the GTA. Believe me when I say my services will cost you less than nine-grand. Because you don’t wanna be hauled to small claims court by some doe-eyed college coed, do you? Drop me a line today!
