Sloppy work, rude, flippantly unprofessional.
I've been here a few times, however this is only the last two visits.
My wife had her nipples pierced here back in 2008 by Kyle, however her left piercing ended up diagonal instead of horizontal (To be fair Kyle was at notably pleasant and friendly). Kyle explained it was just swelling, but 6 months later, no swelling and it was still completely askew. We contacted Laughing Buddha and explained the problem, we were told that the piercing would have to be removed and let it completely heal before it would need to be re-pierced, which was fine since it looked pretty retarded anyway.
So another 6 months pass and I want to get my lobes scalpeled up to 00-gauge (which I had been wanting for about a year or so), and my wife had, of course, completely healed at this point.
So I called to see if it was necessary to set up and appointment. In short I was told that in either case it was a walk-in. I also spoke to the artist who was on-staff (filling in for John D.) at the time who explained that the piercing I wanted done was an easy one to do and that he had 7+ years of doing scalpeling / body mods alone and more total experience than John D., **but** John D. wouldn't allow him to do it for some reason. The artist I spoke to was expressly annoyed by this.
Then I'm told that I have to wait for John D. to return from holiday or something, but nobody knew when that would be. I spend the next two weeks calling to find out if he's in because the staff still doesn't know when.
Finally I catch him in today and the two of us head over. First off, they refused to accept responsibility for the buggered up piercing they did a year ago, in spite of agreeing to fix it before. I sceptically conceded an additional piercing fee to them for my wife's work to be done. They tried to charge her for her old jewelry she brought in as well.
We met with John D. and the counter staff explain that John needs to do a consult for me for the work I want to have done. John then proceeds to wander off aimlessly ignoring me for the next 10 minutes until he comes back for my wife.
After listening to John trash about how sloppy Kyle's work was for a few minutes in the piercing(?) room I asked him again about doing that consult for me. He immediately told me "No." and seemed somewhat hostile and offered no further explanation, then went about ignoring me again.
me: "Errrr.... what exactly is the problem?"
John D: "The problem is that I'm not going to do that for you."
me: "ok... and why is that? Wouldn't you want to examine the tissue or anything first?"
John: "Because you don't have enough work done. If you came in here with full sleeves and and lots of facial piercings I would."
me: "Wait.... are you telling me i'm not fucking hardcore enough to have my ears pierced?"
John: "Well, yes if you want to see it that way."
To preface this, I'm sitting here across from him, I have a green mohawk, Ive got a chain hanging off of me that could suspend a effing truck engine. I also have a few tatts, some visible, some covered. No effing butterflies or stupid meaningless ones either. I wait a year before I get a tatt idea inked to make sure it stands the test of time. Also I have one visible piercing.
Me: "how do you expect me to see it?"
John: "Well it's permanent. You're not committed enough at this point - it wont heal up so you cant get rid of it. If you had a lot of work done then there's already no going back."
Me: "Right, that's exactly what I want. It seems to me most of the people I know who are covered in ink start late-teens or earlier. there's an age group a lot more likely to be fickle. Should I be led to believe that the only reason that I can't get this piercing done is because you think I could still go live a white-collar life if I cleaned up a little? You sound like you're the one with regret here."
John: "I'm not going to help you."
Me: "Look, mate, I'm 30 years old. I'm not some bloody stupid fucking kid who stole money out of the cookie tin. You don't seem to have a problem doing all those tramp-stamps and ankle-butterflies university chics come in here to get just to piss off Daddy. Those are permanent too, mate."
John: (ignores me)
Me: "How did you become the fucking art-police? what if someone doesn't necessarily want full sleeves done? This is body art, not a fucking social rank or badge of honour for pompous poser-hipsters."
John: (ignores me)
Me: "... Is there any medical reason why this would be a problem?"
John: "Look you should pierce them with 16-gauge and if you're sure you want 00(-gauge) you can stretch."
Me: "Are you telling me its not safe, you can't do it, or you wont do it?"
John: "No, its safe. I CAN do it, but I refuse to in your case"
I pretty much gave up after that. John needs to learn some respect and humility, also hit by a lorry.
