NEW YORK: Nudists in famously tolerant San Francisco lost a bid on Tuesday to block a city ban on nakedness in public places, when a federal judge threw out a legal challenge that argued public nudity was akin to political expression.
San Francisco city leaders last month approved the ban on baring it all in streets, public plazas and the transit system to curtail public nudity, which some residents and business owners complained had gotten out of control. The efforts to clamp down have caused a flap in the city, where men in particular are known to parade naked through the streets of the predominantly gay Castro District. Four nudist activists sued in November, even before the measure barring public nudity was passed by a slim majority of the board of supervisors, saying it would violate their constitutional right to free expression.
