SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - San Francisco may be getting ready to shed its image as a city where anything goes, including clothing.
City lawmakers are
scheduled to vote Tuesday on an ordinance that would prohibit nudity in
most public places, a blanket ban that represents an escalation of a
two-year tiff between a devoted group of men who strut their stuff
through the city's famously gay Castro District and the supervisor who
represents the area.
Supervisor Scott Wiener's
proposal would make it illegal for a person over the age of 5 to "expose
his or her genitals, perineum or anal region on any public street,
sidewalk, street median, parklet or plaza" or while using public
transit.
A first offense would carry
a maximum penalty of a $100 fine, but prosecutors would have authority
to charge a third violation as a misdemeanor punishable by up to a $500
fine and a year in jail. Exemptions would be made for participants at
permitted street fairs and parades, such as the city's annual gay pride
event and the Folsom Street Fair, which celebrates sadomasochism and
other sexual subcultures.
Wiener said he resisted
introducing the ordinance, but felt compelled to act after constituents
complained about the naked men who gather in a small Castro plaza most
days and sometimes walk the streets au naturel. He persuaded his
colleagues last year to pass a law requiring a cloth to be placed
between public seating and bare rears, yet the complaints have
continued.
"I don't think having some
guys taking their clothes off and hanging out seven days a week at
Castro and Market Street is really what San Francisco is about. I think
it's a caricature of what San Francisco is about," Wiener said.
The proposed ban
predictably has produced outrage, as well as a lawsuit. Last week, about
two dozen people disrobed in front of City Hall and marched around the
block to the amusement of gawking tourists and high school students on a
field trip.
Stripped down to his
sunglasses and hiking boots, McCray Winpsett, 37, said he understands
the disgust of residents who would prefer not to see the body
modifications and sex enhancement devices sported by some of the Castro
nudists. But he thinks Wiener's prohibition goes too far in undermining a
tradition "that keeps San Francisco weird."
"A few lewd exhibitionists
are really ruining it for the rest of us," he said. "It's my time to
come out now to present myself in a light and show what true nudity is
all about so people can separate the difference between what a nudist is
and an exhibitionist is."
Because clothes are
required to enter City Hall itself, demonstrators who try to disrobe at
the Board of Supervisors meeting will be escorted out by sheriff's
deputies. That is what happened last Monday when Gypsy Taub removed her
dress at a committee hearing where the ban had its first public hearing.
Taub, a mother of two, said she got her start as a nudist while hosting
a local cable program devoted to the theory that the government was
behind the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
"I thought if I take my clothes off, I bet they are going to listen," she said.
San Francisco lawyer
Christina DiEdoardo filed a federal lawsuit last week on behalf of Taub
and three men that seeks to block Weiner's ordinance, if it passes and
is signed by Mayor Edwin Lee. The complaint alleges that the ban
infringes on the free speech rights of nudists and discriminates against
those who cannot afford to obtain a city permit.
While it may seem strange
that going out in the buff is not already illegal in San Francisco, most
California cities do not have local nudity laws, Wiener said. Instead,
they are adequately covered by state indecent exposure laws and societal
mores. But indecent exposure technically only applies to lewd behavior,
so city officials have had to craft a local solution, he said, adding
that the cities of Berkeley and San Jose already have done so.
"I suspect there are a lot
of places that maybe don't currently have a local law (and) that if
people started getting naked every day would quickly see a local law,"
Wiener said.
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