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Chip East / Reuters file
People walk at the boardwalk in Asbury Park, N.J., on August 26, 2011.
A former councilwoman worries that skimpy clothing along the boardwalk in her Jersey Shore city is threatening its “classy” image, so she wants a crackdown on bathing suits.
It turns out that a decades-old ordinance bans bathing attire on Asbury Park’s boardwalk “or the public walks adjacent thereto,” the Newark Star-Ledger reports.
Local Republican chairwoman Louise Murray, 74, a city councilwoman from 1997 to 2001, told the newspaper that she recalls when women wore dresses as they strolled the boardwalk. She said she knows times have changed but still thinks enforcing the bathing suit ban is a good idea.
“Put a shirt on,” Murray said. “That’s all I’m asking. Is that so bad?”
Asbury Park, which fell into decline in the 1980s and 1990s, has recently seen a renaissance, with high-end restaurants and stores dotting the boardwalk.
Residents and city leaders point to the difficulty of enforcing the ordinance and to the fact that changing rooms once common near the beach are long gone.
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