The Kapiti Coast may soon become one of the world’s longest nude beaches.
Anything to post a gratuitous butt shot.
Kapiti Coast District Council’s regulatory management committee last week endorsed a staff recommendation to allow nudity along the 45km coastline from Paekakariki to Otaki in its 2008 Draft Beach Bylaw.
In the case of offensive or lewd behaviour, the council would turn to the police.
Steve Porteous said he was all for nudity on local beaches. “People have forgotten we are all naked underneath and they are scared of that,” he said.
Kapiti Mayor Jenny Rowan and 10 councillors unanimously supported the stance to be included in the draft bylaw. A staff report on the issue said naked sunbathing or swimming on a beach was not considered offensive behaviour in modern society.
“In this age of greater freedom of expression and perhaps greater tolerance to nakedness, bylaws restricting the rights of law-abiding naturists are vulnerable on the basis that they breach … the Bill of Rights Act,” the report said.
Case law quoted in the report stated that “merely being naked on a beach does not render a person liable to causing an offence”.
However, if someone was acting in a lewd manner they would be liable to prosecution under the Summary of Offences Act 1981.
Ms Rowan welcomed the move, saying it meant there would be no signs confining naturists to specific areas of the beach.
“There will be no signage, they will have a free rein. The beach is a place for the general public, as long as they are not being offensive they can be clothed or unclothed. The Human Rights Act supports anybody being there,” Ms Rowan said.
Peka Peka beach had gained notoriety as a nude sunbathing spot popular with gay men during the past 10 years and the council had wrestled with putting warning signs up on the beach.
Deputy mayor Ann Chapman stressed the difference between the words “nude” and “lewd”, and said clothed people also had to behave themselves.
A local gay sunlover was worried gay people using Peka Peka beach could be targeted.
“Who is going to determine what is lewd behaviour? Will two naked men or two women lying on the beach together be slammed lewd?”
The draft bylaw will go out for community reaction this month.
Courtesy of Stuff.co.nz
Tags: Nudity