Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

San Francisco Supervisors Vote To Expand City's Nudity Ban

Hanging out in San Francisco's Castro district; Nov. 3, 2010.
Jeremy Brooks
/
Flickr.com
Hanging out in San Francisco's Castro district; Nov. 3, 2010.

Our friend Ian Hill, of NPR member station KQED, brings us this news:

"The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 6-5 on Tuesday to expand the city's ban on nudity and 10-1 to pass an ordinance allowing 'micro-unit' apartments.

"The legislation expanding the nudity ban could force people to keep their clothes on most of the time in public. San Francisco had banned nudity in parks, on port property and in restaurants. Under the legislation approved Tuesday, that list could grow to include city plazas, parklets, sidewalks, streets and public transit."

As Mark wrote yesterday, the city had passed an earlier law requiring nudists to place a towel between their parts and other things like park benches or restaurant chairs.

But San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener (we're not kidding) said that law didn't stop the complaints.

Ian reports that the vote provoked some of pro-nudist in the audience to strip down.

According to Ian, Wiener said "the Castro and San Francisco are places of freedom of expression and acceptance."

"(But) It doesn't mean that we have no standards whatsoever," he said.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports the ban still requires a second vote from the board and a signature from the mayor. But it could go into effect in February.

If you can't get enough of this story, head over to KQED, which has extensive coverage.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Eyder Peralta is NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya.