Public nudity ban could spur a never-nude Sacramento

Paging Arrested Development's Tobias Funke: The city of Sacramento wants to know where you got your cutoff shorts.

Next week, the Sacramento City Council is poised to consider a much-ridiculed public nudity ban that was apparently prompted by a citywide genitalia-spree: According to a city staff report, “Multiple incidents have occurred where” nude or seminude individuals, displaying their hang-downs or hidey-hoos on public sidewalks or rights-of-way, were arrested but not charged with a crime.

As for what “multiple incidents” mean numerically, a Sacramento Police Department spokesman didn't provide that data.

The California Penal Code only cares about public nudity if it's accompanied by some sort of lewd conduct. (Probably because it has “penal” in the title.) But Sacramento is different. It considers the possibility of someone standing naked “on the sidewalk in front of of Cesar Chavez Park while children are present … offensive or socially repugnant,” the staff report says. To redress this, the amended ordinance would forbid nudity in all public areas—and on private property where the nudity is still visible from public property.

As never-nude practitioner Funke might say, the city may end up with a mess on its hands.

For instance, could neighbors narc on each other for showering or undressing with the blinds open? And what of homeless residents who don't always have access to private enclosures where they can change?

The drafted law offers no grace in these circumstances, exempting only children under the age of 10, breastfeeding mothers and performers.

But it does go into hilarious detail defining nudity as “exposure of the genitals, pubic area, anus, or buttocks with less than a fully opaque covering; or exposure of a female breast below a horizontal line across the top of the areola at the areola’s highest point with less than a fully opaque covering.” Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor, and subject to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

The city council is tentatively set to hear the ordinance on August 25. (Raheem F. Hosseini)