New York's Fire Island Officials Ban Nude Sunbathing

The landscape of Fire Island's shoreline isn't the only thing changing, as USA Today reports, park officials are cracking down on a decades-old ban on public nudity.

This all has to do with mass complaints, steaming from, "assault, sex, masturbation and prostitution, along with damage from Superstorm Sandy that decimated sight-obscuring sand dunes near popular Lighthouse Beach," Fire Island chief ranger Lena Koschmann told Newsday.

According to USA Today, The ban also will be enforced at four other Fire Island beaches where nudists gather. Rangers will begin by "educating" au naturel visitors, Koschmann told the paper, and progress to giving tickets, which, she conceded, may be difficult since many nude sunbathers do not carry identification.

But, as Koschmann stated to Newsday, We've been struggling to make it work because Fire Island has a history of that type of use and people have been coming there for years. The more we talked about it and researched it, the more we realized that that use wasn't compatible with an area like Lighthouse Beach," reported by Newsday.

There is also the health risk:

Koschmann said thousands of nude sunbathers pose a public health risk in an area that wasn't meant to be heavily used.

"There has been a huge change in the demographic and the types of activities happening there in the last 10 or 15 years," she said. "Now when you go out there it's a party atmosphere. There's DJs and music, and people partying and drinking," according to Newsday.

However, there will still be some leniency in some cases, like toplessness:

She said, according to Newsday, "Toplessness, is tricky. The law that's on the books still says a woman has to have her breasts covered. That being said, there is some case law that has led to a different type of enforcement in that area. . . . We're not going to be hammering on toplessness."

If people want to continue participating in nude sunbathing or take in the sights of a nude beach, the only options now are paying for the experience in Las Vegas or going to Europe.

If Europe is the choice, try Limasol or Ayia Napa in Cyprus, or Caen, in France.