BRATTLEBORO, Vt. - Topless women on parade? That was fine. Teenagers
loitering in the buff, in a downtown parking lot? No problem. Naked sunbathers
at swimming holes? It was just au naturel.
Owner Suzanne Corsano stands in her, Gallery of the Woods,
shop on Main St. In Brattleboro, Vt., Thursday, July 12, 2007. [AP]
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But a senior citizen in his
birthday suit, walking through the center of town on a Friday night, wearing
only a fanny pack? That's where Brattleboro draws a fig leaf.
After years of allowing public nudity, the town famous for its
strip-and-let-strip attitude is considering banning it in parts of town, saying
naked notoriety has begun drawing people here and is offending locals.
The town's Select Board plans to introduce an emergency ordinance banning
nudity in some parts of town Tuesday.
"Just because you can doesn't mean you should," said Select Board member Dick
DeGray. "You can't go into a store and buy an adult magazine until you're 18,
and yet you can walk down the street in Vermont and see naked people. There's
something wrong with that picture."
On July 6, a 68-year-old man showed up naked downtown, walking the streets
during Gallery Walk, a monthly social event in which people roam downtown,
stopping in art galleries and shops. Gallery owner Suzanne Corsano was locking
up for the night when she encountered him on a sidewalk.
"Naked people don't impress me," said Corsano, 60. "But to be walking down
the street like that. I just looked straight at him, and he looked down. He was
trying to get me to look down there, but I wouldn't."
The man told residents he was from Arizona and had decided to vacation in
Brattleboro after reading about its public nudity freedom on the Internet.
Vermont has no state laws against public nudity, although a handful of cities
and towns have enacted anti-nudity ordinances.
Brattleboro flirted with the idea of an anti-nudity ordinance last summer
when a group of teenagers took to hanging around a downtown parking lot in the
nude, which led to national publicity and triggered telephone calls from curious
people in faraway places.
"They'll call up and say, `So, I hear you've got a lot of naked people
running around town,'" said Jerry Goldberg, executive director of the
Brattleboro Area Chamber of Commerce.
Some would-be visitors call to say they are putting off their planned visit
because they're worried about public nudity, he said. Town officials worry, too:
The idea of naked people spoiling Gallery Walk night by scaring away families
with children is chilling.
"Every time you guys do one of your articles, people come from all over,"
said police Capt. Steven Rowell.
Last week, a man charged with a felony sex crime for dancing naked in the
street pleaded to a lesser offense and got a one-year deferred sentence. Adhi
Palar, 20, of Brattleboro, was among the group that dabbled with nudity last
summer. He was cited because police said he was seen dancing naked and pulling a
piece of clothing back and forth between his legs, rubbing his genitals.
Public nudity is far from an everyday occurrence, but many here want it
regulated.
"It's time they did something about it," said Sherwood Smith, manager of
Baskets Bookstore, which is located near a parking lot where naked teens
gathered last summer. "It hurts a store like this. People who are likely to buy
used books are often conservative middle-aged people, or older."
Not everyone agreed.
"I don't like the idea of them taking the rights to something natural away,"
said Rhiannon Curtis, 19. "I like to swim naked, and that would be affected if
they do this. Vermont doesn't need to conform to the rest of society's uptight
rules."