SAN CLEMENTE--California is telling skinny-dippers to put some clothes on, and the message is sending a chill through lovers of sunning-in-the-buff across the country.

In what one national nudist organization calls "a tremendous setback" for its cause, California's Department of Parks and Recreation has tossed aside a longstanding policy of toleration and is warning of a crackdown on nude sunbathers at San Onofre State Beach.

Bob Morton, executive director of the Naturist Action Committee, a Wisconsin-based organization that fought the nudity ban in court, worries that other beaches where nudity is allowed could follow California's lead.

"There are other states in which there are sanctioned nude beaches," he says. "They're all looking to see what California is doing."

Beachgoers say a secluded 1,000-foot section of shoreline here has been a popular spot for nude sunbathing for more than 30 years. It even attracts tourists from out of state who seek all-over tans.

Roy Stearns, deputy director for communications of the Department of Parks and Recreation, says that the state has never designated any place as a clothing-optional beach and that state law specifically bans nudity in state parks. San Onofre, he says, is one of several public beaches in the state that have become known as clothing-optional by practice and tradition.

"What's happened is some people over the years just went there and took their clothes off, sat down and had a nice time," Stearns says. "They kind of carved this place out for themselves."

A second Southern California beach, a section of Torrey Pines State Beach in San Diego called "Black's Beach," remains popular among nude sunbathers. Stearns says that although the practice is illegal there, too, a similar crackdown is not imminent.

"We aren't going to go on a campaign through the rest of the state and shake things up," he says. "At all places, we will look on a case-by-case basis."

The dispute comes as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has been struggling to keep state parks open in the face of huge budget deficits and spending cuts. Visitors to San Onofre pay a $15-a-day access fee (which the state does not charge at some other beaches), and defenders of nude sunbathing say their dollars are supporting the park's operation. "Now we're going to criminalize the only group of people that has been keeping this particular boat afloat," Morton says. (Sources: Orange County Register & USA Today)

Story Date: September 2, 2010