California - home of some of the country's best known nude beaches is experiencing a sea change in official attitude toward traditional nude use locations per this article from the San Francisco Chronicle:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/20/BAQJ18S5RR.DTL#ixzz0Lw120X3j
Snippets from the article:
(07-20) SAN FRANCISCO -- Keep that towel handy. California parks officials can enforce a ban on nudity at any state beach, even in areas that have been informally designated as "clothing optional," a state appeals court says.
The new policy will take effect immediately, although officers will decide whether to warn, cite or arrest violators, said Roy Stearns, spokesman for the state Parks and Recreation Department.
"I'm pretty sure that we will try to tread lightly to get compliance at first," he said Monday, three days after the appellate court in Santa Ana published its ruling as a statewide precedent. "We're not in the business of hassling people. ... Officer discretion will play a role."
Still, he noted, the ruling overturned a 30-year-old policy that had allowed sunbathers and swimmers to bask unclothed in isolated sections of state beaches from San Diego to Eureka. Park rangers intervened only if someone complained, and then would merely tell the nudist to don a swimsuit or leave.
...
Lawyers for the Naturist Action Committee, which sued unsuccessfully to preserve a clothing-optional zone at San Onofre State Beach in Orange County, said they would appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court and lobby the Parks and Recreation Department to exercise its long-unused authority to designate areas where nudism is allowed.
"It's time for the government to realize that nude sunbathing and skinny-dipping has a long tradition in this country," said Allen Baylis, an attorney and officer of the committee.
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Dick Williams
Kansas City MO