Emergency Ban On Topless Sunbathing Enacted In Ocean City

OCEAN CITY, MD — After fears from some residents and beach-goers that topless women would flock to its sandy shores, the Ocean City Council passed an emergency measure Saturday, June 10, to ban public nudity. The move came after word that the beach patrol in Ocean City would disregard women who are sunbathing topless circulated across social media.

The city council voted unanimously for the emergency ordinance after a woman expressed her desire to be bare-chested on Ocean City’s beach, the town's website says. The woman, an advocate to “normalize bare-chestedness,” believes it is her constitutional right under equal protection to be bare-chested in public.

Ocean City officials disagree. The new ordinance prohibits offenses involving public nudity or those in a state of nudity. The law says “there is no constitutional right for an individual to appear in public nude or in a state of nudity. Whatever personal right one has to be nude or in a state of nudity that right becomes subject to government interest and regulation when one seeks to exercise it in public.”

While the Worcester County States’ Attorney waits for an opinion from the Maryland Attorney General’s Office, word circulated that topless sun-worshippers would get a pass from officials. That prompted Saturday's quick action by the council.

The topless ban also says “equal protection clause does not demand that things that are different in fact be treated the same in law, nor that a government pretend there are no physiological differences between men and women.”

Patch's Original Story:

A memo directing the beach patrol in Ocean City to disregard women who are sunbathing topless has been shared across social media, with news that the popular resort town on Maryland's Eastern Shore is now a topless beach. Not so fast, city officials said on Facebook Friday afternoon.

"Despite what is being circulated on social media, the Town of Ocean City is not a topless beach and will not become a topless beach," read the city's Facebook post.

The misunderstanding likely began this week when Ocean City Beach Patrol employees received a memo telling them not to approach women who sunbathe topless. In past years, patrol workers would tell women to cover up, but a policy that began May 20 says employees should instead document complaints of toplessness only, even if beach-goers ask that the sun-worshippers be ordered to dress. Police officers will still handle nudity complaints.

Capt. Butch Arbin told WBOC that legal uncertainty following a request to allow topless sunbathing led to the policy change. Chelsea Covington is an advocate to normalize female toplessness, who has asked Worcester County State's Attorney Beau Oglesby to weigh in on the laws regulating toplessness in Ocean City. Oglesby, in turn, asked for an opinion from Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh, but none has been given, the TV station reports.

“The woman has provided what she believes is legal justification for her to be allowed to sunbathe and walk about our beaches topless,” Arbin wrote in a Tuesday memo to the beach patrol, reports WBAL. “The state’s attorney has requested the Maryland attorney general to provide an opinion on this question. To date, that requested opinion has not been provided to the state’s attorney.”

City officials are not thrilled by the social media firestorm that has labeled the town's beaches as topless.

"We want our lifeguards to have their eyes on the ocean, as the safety of our swimmers is their first priority," city officials said. "Our police department, on the other hand, will respond to calls from the Beach Patrol and complaints from our beach patrons, should any activity of toplessness occur."

Ocean City leaders have received dozens of phone calls, read thousands of comments and answered numerous emails from residents and visitors expressing their concerns about the purported change at the beach. "We assure you we share those concerns and intend to do whatever is necessary to prevent this from happening on our beach, or in any public area in Ocean City," says the Facebook message.

»File photo of Ocean City beach courtesy of the town of Ocean City, Maryland