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Venice Wants To Allow Boobs On The Beach Again
Venice might get a little more European (Photo by Antonio Guillem via Shutterstock)
The Venice Neighborhood Council wants women to be able to enjoy topless sunbathing, just like men. The Venice Neighborhood Council motioned 12-2 last night to support women who wish to sunbathe topless at the beach, the L.A. Times reports. The group thinks it's only fair that women should be able to enjoy the sun without the weird tan lines, just like men. They also pointed out that Venice Beach was named after a European city in Italy, and European cities are generally pretty cool with topless sunbathing. They also called Venice a "safe haven for liberal views and free expression."
The L.A. City Council does not have to agree with Venice Neighborhood Council's recommendation, but the group will soon be sending letters to Mayor Eric Garcetti and other officials.
Oddly enough, this wouldn't be a new thing for Venice. You could be naked on Venice Beach in 1974. However, once news spread regarding Venice Beach's relaxed environment, a bunch of weirdos descended on the beach, according to Yo Venice. Venice Neighborhood Council President Emeritus Linda Lucks said at last night's meeting that she remembers these days. Instead of just enjoying the pleasant weather and the view, tourists began standing around in all their clothes, gawking and trying to take their own photos of women on the beach. Lucks said the LAPD couldn't control the crowds of perverts, and Venice History cites 1974 as the same year police began telling sunbathers to cover up.
An L.A. Times article from 1986 reported on an LAPD crackdown in which they were citing women for sunbathing topless and men for wearing g-strings. A police officer then said that a group of women sunbathing in the nude drew a group of over 100 staring men.
You'd think that the ability to type "boobs" into Google Image search would have solved this problem, but we noticed this phenomenon for ourselves at Topless Day on the Beach—an annual demonstration advocating for women to have the same shirt-free rights as men. In between the religious protesters calling for hellfire and damnation and the peaceful topless demonstrators singing Beatles tunes, there were a lot of men we were pretty sure weren't photojournalists climbing over each other to get 200 shots of the same breasts.
Lucks is hoping that that if Venice Beach relaxes its dress code, the other city beaches follow suit, lest Venice once again be infiltrated by staring perverts.
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