By LAUREN BISHOP
Journal Staff
ITHACA -- Both men and women could be stripped of their right to go shirtless on The Commons if an idea that came up in a meeting of city department heads moves ahead.
This summer, the Ithaca Police Department -- and the rest of Ithaca -- quickly learned that it was legal for women to go topless wherever men are allowed to in New York state, thanks to a 1992 ruling by the state Court of Appeals.
After they picnicked shirtless at DeWitt Park in July, two women were taken to the Ithaca police station, placed in holding cells and let go after city prosecutor Margaret McCarthy determined that they hadn't broken any laws.
More topless picnics -- or topfree picnics, as participants prefer they be called -- soon followed in the park, and shirtless women were sometimes spied on The Commons.
After the first picnic, Mayor Alan Cohen said, city department heads discussed the incident at one of their regular meetings -- specifically, whether anyone thought there were any areas in the city where both men and women should keep their shirts on. The only area that came up was the downtown central business district, he said.
Cohen then asked city clerk Julie Conley Holcomb, a member of the Commons Advisory Board, to ask the committee to discuss the idea at its next meeting. The committee's charges including making recommendations to lawmakers on the pedestrian mall.
"Before I broach the subject with Common Council, I want to see what the Commons Advisory Board has to say," Cohen said.
Cohen also offered his own opinion.
"I support the ruling," he said. "But when it comes to a question of public nudity and a parent's right to expose their child to public nudity, it should be the parent's prerogative, and not the public's prerogative."
Cohen also said people have told him that they weren't going to bring their families downtown anymore to avoid seeing shirtless women. If enough people made that decision, it could hurt downtown businesses, he said.
City clerk and Commons Advisory Board member Holcomb said she had heard the same sentiment. But she said she thought enforcement of a shirt requirement would be a problem with the layoffs of city staff that lawmakers recently approved as part of next year's budget and a planned change in the way the city prosecutor's office is structured.
"I'm not sure that this is something that's feasible for 2003," she said.
Holcomb also said she wasn't sure if the number of topless incidents warranted legislation now. Neither did Commons Advisory Board member Joe Wetmore, owner of Autumn Leaves Used Books.
"I think that it's a non-issue, it's a non-problem, and that Alan's just looking for a way to regulate people's lives even more," he said.
He also questioned how such a requirement would be enforced, pointing out that people still walk their dogs on The Commons and ride their bikes on it despite laws prohibiting those activities.
"We don't need to get into dress codes on The Commons," he said. "This is just silly."
Board member Kris Lewis felt differently.
"I'm just not anxious to have a repeat of what we had last summer when we had a youth choir singing at the same time we had a topless demonstration on The Commons," said Lewis, who owns Morris' Men's Wear and Morris' Too on The Commons. "If that means we have to have a law, then I guess that means we'll have to have a law."
With Lewis and other Commons Advisory Board members absent, Holcomb and Wetmore said the board discussed the issue at its meeting last week but didn't take any action on it. Holcomb said she would probably bring it up again at the board's December meeting.
But board member and Angelheart owner Beverly Apgar said she simply didn't have enough information yet to judge whether such a requirement was appropriate or not, including what the general public thought.
"From my standpoint, I personally welcome topless women into my store who are looking to buy tops," she said. "I haven't made that connection yet, but I'm always hoping."