Posted on 08/22/2006 4:59:21 AM PDT by Abathar
BRATTLEBORO, Vt. --Complaints about young people who spend time in downtown naked have prompted the Select Board to explore an anti-nudity ordinance.
Groups of young people have been congregating in a downtown parking lot and enjoying the warm summer weather without clothing, and that bothers some local residents.
"A parking lot is not a strip club. It's a parking lot," resident Theresa Toney told the Select Board last week. She said she has seen repeated instances of naked people hanging out downtown.
"This is a problem. What about children seeing this?" Toney asked.
Vermont has no law against nudity, though some cities and towns ban it by ordinance.
News that the Select Board had asked Town Attorney Robert Fisher to research a possible local ordinance drew a protest of sorts Friday, as five young men gathered downtown and stripped their clothes off in protest.
"There's no real valid way to justify the banning of nakedness," said one of the men, Adhi Palar, between licks on his clarinet. "Nakedness does not violate any human rights whatsoever."
With no law to enforce, Police Chief John Martin was taking a laid-back approach.
"What's the harm?" Martin asked. "It's a problem to the extent that it bothers people, but we've always had it here."
"We get calls and we check out what's going on. Even though there's often no criminal violation, we want to be sure there isn't a confrontation. Or that someone is not emotionally disturbed."
A criminal charge might result if the nudity is sexual in nature, with the purpose of "gratification or the intent of arousing oneself or another," Martin said.
Nudity has put the town in the headlines before. A group of women held "Breast Fest" in Brattleboro in the early 1990s, marching down Main Street with no clothing above
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
**Snicker**
This thread is worthless without pictures...............
Hippies smell funny.
Sick writer alert!
"Groups of young people have been congregating in a downtown parking lot and enjoying the warm summer weather without clothing, and that bothers some local residents."
Eeewwwww...what a disgusting thought. White Yankee flesh broiling in the sun.
Doesn't every municipality in the country have laws against public nudity? I guess people so far up north never thought they needed them.
Please, no pictures of old saggy hippies!!
"Don't look Ethel", it's to late she's already been mooned.
I know that Song!
Stop making it play in my head!!!
Haha...good one!
"What's the harm?" Martin asked. "It's a problem to the extent that it bothers people, but we've always had it here."
This is Vermont after all!
The naked people will win. The constitution protects your right to bare arms.
Maybe if they're lucky, a tsunami will take out that part of the eastern sea board... cap cod can go with it...
There is Naked and then there is Nude.
Roseanne without clothes in Naked, Sharon Stone is always Nude.
Maybe there is something to that burka thing after all.
Please, gods, DON'T let this fool be a contortionist!
And so the seemingly inevitable questions for 'The Movement': Is it learned behavior, or are many of us just 'born that way'? Is it just a phase or at some early age deep down did they know they were naked underneath it all, and harbored strong unspoken attractions for other nude people? Does the seemingly widespread disinclination of emloyers to hire the nude suggest a pattern of discrimination that can be fought using current federal law as either an 'orientation' or a disability? Do they really have to do all that jumping around with signs at St.Patrick's Cathedral in New York chanting " We're Nude! We're Lewd!Get used to it!"
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