People wishing to enjoy the Kapiti Coast's beaches naked will continue to be able to if a recommendation by the district council is accepted tomorrow.
The proposed Beach Bylaw 2009 keeps the rules on public nakedness on the area's beaches the same as the previous bylaw, chief executive Pat Dougherty said.
The existing rules did not include any specific controls over nudity on the beach but provided for the council to declare an area of the beach "clothing optional" -- although this had never happened in the past, Mr Dougherty said. "Some people are under the misapprehension we intend to change the provisions of the bylaw and permit nudity on our beaches. This is not the case," he said.
The existing bylaw had been in place for many years with no reported problems, and any offensive behaviour had been quickly dealt with by the police using the Summary Offences Act 1981, Mr Dougherty said. "The provisions in the proposed bylaw are no different to those used by the other local authorities in the Wellington region." The issue came to a head last year when the council received more than 1000 submissions on the bylaw.
At the time, Kapiti District Council communications manager Tony Cronin said submissions complaining about nudity on the beach were not relevant to the consultation, and many people had been misguided over what the purpose of the bylaw was.
"Most of them are saying `no, no, no, no, we don't want our beaches naked' and we're saying `well, no, neither do we, but we can't enforce that'," he said.
"There is nothing to stop you being on the beach naked except that you may offend somebody, in which case the police may be called," he said.
The recommendations for the 2009 bylaw will be put to the council's regulatory management committee tomorrow morning.
