Despite power being restored at Yard Birds and the City of Chehalis rescinding its condemnation of the building on Dec. 6, the eviction notices posted for business owners are still being enforced.
Tenants now have until Dec. 31 to vacate the premises, according to Yard Birds co-owner Darris McDaniel.
As for the future of Yard Birds itself and rumors of a possible sale, McDaniel told The Chronicle that they were just that — rumors.
“I have nothing else to say because nothing’s concrete,” McDaniel said.
One of the tenants being evicted is Michael Cristina, owner of Skindoodle Tattoo, who The Chronicle met in late November. Cristina moved to Centralia in 1989 and originally opened Skindoodle in 1994 on Tower Avenue where the studio remained open until 2012 when Cristina took a break from tattooing to pursue another career.
“I was in the drug culture for a while and it got to the point where I wanted to get rid of that in my life. So I turned around, closed my shop, put it in storage and decided to get my life headed in a different direction. I was never in any trouble with the law but I was just wanting to change my life,” Cristina said.
He got a job working at a treatment center for those addicted to drugs and alcohol. During that time, he met his girlfriend, Lisa Hirtzel. The two still live together in Onalaska. Then, in 2021, Cristina decided to reopen his studio with Hirtzel’s help.
He initially reopened Skindoodle in its original location on Tower Avenue. Initially, Cristina was set up with a year-long lease at that location; however, due to the sale of the building, the lease was terminated early.
Cirstina said the original owner of the Tower Avenue location explained to him the possibility of a sale and said he could’ve stayed to the end of his lease, but then the new buyer would have backed out as they wanted the building empty to get a tax break for 2021.
The new owner did buy Cristina out for the remaining time on the lease. He took that money and used it to begin setting up a new studio at Yard Birds in January 2022 where he paid three months rent in advance.
“That was the only place we could find that we could afford. There was a hair salon in there, and we put another almost $5,000 into that place setting it up. It was an old salon and we had to redo things from bottom to top but it was a nice looking little shop we had in there,” Cristina said.
By March, Cristina had Skindoodle ready for business once more at Yard Birds when on Aug. 29 the power was shut off at the building and Cristina was locked out of his studio.
“That’s where we’re at. I’m at a loss, I don’t know how we’re going to recover from this. I just don’t see it happening,” Cristina said.
It wasn’t until the beginning of December when power was restored that Yard Birds was opened up to its tenants and Cristina was allowed access to his equipment and studio again.
He said aside from all of the moving expenses and deposits, he had taken out credit cards to help pay for licensing fees to be able to tattoo again.
Now that Cristina hasn’t been able to tattoo anyone since August, he’s facing a financial crisis.
“We’ve been waiting for two and a half months to find out what they’re (Yard Birds) going to do, and nobody has communicated,” Hirtzel said.
Considering Yard Birds was the only place Cristina could afford to move in at the beginning of the year, and now that inflation has driven rent rates even higher, Cristina is at the point where he can only afford to pack his studio up and put it into storage while he works odd jobs in between, which he said is a struggle with his bad back at age 56.
“I took out early retirement to help him with the tattoo shop and get surgery done, so we’re living on $825 a month,” Hirtzel said.
While some shop owners have now moved out of Yard Birds, Cristina has no current storage available for the equipment in Skindoodle.
“I spoke to Darris (McDaniel)just now and he told me I have until the end of December to get my belongings out of the building. I told him I would try but I have no place to put it. I also asked him that if I didn’t get it out would I be losing it? He said, ‘I’m not saying that,’ and continued to tell me the building is going to be locked at the end of December,” Cristina said in a Dec. 8 email.
Because of these combined factors, Cristina has started a GoFundMe.com crowdfunding web page. He said he doesn’t like asking for help but feels he has no other options right now.
“I thought that I was gonna be good as long as I could hold a steady line (of work). I’m 56 years old. I actually feel like I have another 25 years of tattooing in me yet,” Cristina said.
Cristina’s first goal with the GoFundMe campaign is to pay for storage for his tattooing equipment and then hopefully get enough money to afford being able to reopen his studio for a third time in the past two years.
To donate to Cristina’s cause, visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/sos-skindoodle-tattoo-centralia-wa.
