After years of winking at public nudity, this Vermont town is now considering banning it, saying its notoriety has begun attracting out-of-towners and offending locals.
The Select Board plans to introduce an emergency ordinance banning it in certain parts of town on Tuesday.
"Just because you can doesn't mean you should," said Select Board member Dick DeGray.
On July 6, a 68-year-old naked man showed up downtown, walking the streets during Gallery Walk, a monthly event in which people browse in art galleries and shops.
Gallery owner Suzanne Corsano was locking up for the night when she met him on a sidewalk.
NOT IMPRESSED
"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," she said.
The man told residents he was from Arizona and had decided to vacation in Brattleboro after reading about its public nudity on the Internet.
Vermont has no state laws against public nudity, although a handful of cities and towns have enacted anti-nudity ordinances.
Brattleboro considered a ban last summer when a group of teenagers started hanging around a downtown parking lot in the nude, leading to national publicity and curious telephone calls.
"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.
LAUGHABLE
"It's so far from the truth, it's kind of laughable," he said.
"Every time you guys do one of your articles, people come from all over," police Captain Steven Rowell said.
Last week, a man charged with a felony sex crime for dancing naked in the street pleaded to a lesser offense and finally got a one-year deferred sentence.
Adhi Palar, 20, who was among the group that was experimenting with nudity last summer, was cited because police said he was seen dancing naked and pulling a piece of clothing back and forth between his legs.
NOT DOWNTOWN
"It's time they did something about it," said Sherwood Smith, manager of a store near the parking lot where the naked teens gathered last summer.
"I don't care how they robe or disrobe at swimming holes, but in a downtown area like this, it's wrong," he said.
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," she said.
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