ST. ALBANS TOWN — After getting too many public nudity complaints, the Town of St. Albans passed a new public indecency ordinance this March.
The new local law – which goes into effect May 17 – prohibits public nudity and charges people up to $500 fee per day for repeated violations.
“It’s something that has been an ongoing issue, really, and recently there’s been more instances of it,” Town Manager Sean Adkins said. “So this is a legal thing we can do that other localities have done.”
The ordinance is similar to other laws passed by Swanton and Shelburne, Adkins said, with the law using similar legal language that prohibits people from being in public without a necessary “opaque covering.”
“I called the police and was told that I need to contact you,” one complainant wrote in an email to the town after having an encounter. “As you can assume, it doesn’t make me feel very safe. I will now avoid the bike path and am sure that anyone who has seen him is doing the same.”
Receiving complaints
Since starting as St. Albans town manager, Adkins said there’s been a history of submitted complaints from residents about public nudity, but he’s also seen an uptick more recently.
Typically, concerns revolve around residents spotting an individual in the nude on public trails in the town, with some local neighbors saying it’s a daily occurrence. Comments posted online on various social media platforms – including Facebook and Reddit – also identify a cab service tied to recent sightings.
Law enforcement, however, did not provide confirmation. When asked if they track nudist sightings, a St. Albans Police spokesperson said complaints are logged but not tallied.
“Unfortunately, these types of complaints could be labeled as a disturbance, suspicious, informational and among other types of calls, so to get a number would mean reading each individual call,” the SAPD spokesperson said.
Even so, the extent of recent complaints has pushed the town to consider how to eliminate the behavior. If children and families are looking to use the town’s recreational assets, then the town has a responsibility to make sure that everyone has a good experience, Adkins said.
What people do on their own private property, however, remains their own business.
State v. Local
Before moving to Vermont roughly two years ago, Adkins said he didn’t realize the state didn’t have a public indecency law that explicitly forbade anyone from being nude in public.
Vermont’s culture, too, also seemed to begrudgingly accept it. Most residents have some passing knowledge of Montpelier’s annual Naked Bike Ride, and a quick search into the state’s recent past returns multiple examples of nudist camps popping up in northern Vermont, including spots in Sheldon Springs and Milton.
These days, however, the trend seems to have run out of steam locally. Adkins said most complaints he’s heard highlight how people don’t want to see or encounter public nudity.
The St. Albans Town Selectboard agreed. After a brief discussion clarifying how breastfeeding would still be allowed under the new ordinance, the selectboard unanimously approved it, setting the law up to go into effect 60 days after its passage.
If town residents would like to re-examine the question, Adkins said they could organize a petition toward that purpose.
From a legal standpoint, however, the law is a pretty standard one for Vermont’s municipalities. While the state doesn’t forbid public nudity, plenty of local municipalities do.
The Town of Swanton, for example, passed an ordinance banning public nudity in 2003. In that same year, the City of St. Albans even cited The Rave’s owners for allegedly letting a wet T-shirt contest happen at the nightclub.
As for the actual law, those who violate the town ordinance by appearing “in a state of nudity,” are subject to civil penalties and fees, with the first being $100. By the fifth offense, the fee increases to $500, with subsequent penalties charged per day for each day a violation is committed.
“Swanton has a public decency ordinance that we basically borrowed from. It’s similar to other towns and localities that have already passed it,” Adkins said.
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