SPRING LAKE — When Phoenix Feeley visited New Jersey’s famous beaches in 2008, she packed all the usual stuff for a hot day in the sun, except one: a shirt. Her bare breasts caught the attention of Spring Lake police, who arrested her after she refused to cover up. She argued women should be able to go shirtless in...
Phoenix Feeley goes topless at Coney Island in this photo. SPRING LAKE — When Phoenix Feeley visited New Jersey’s famous beaches in 2008, she packed all the usual stuff for a hot day in the sun, except one: a shirt.
Her bare breasts caught the attention of Spring Lake police, who arrested her after she refused to cover up. She argued women should be able to go shirtless in public like men.
But a state appeals court ruled Wednesday that women must wear their tops or face the consequences.
"I’m disappointed," said Feeley, 31, a New York City artist. "It seems like there’s such a headache over it, but not to be able to reveal my chest when a man can reveal his, it doesn’t make any sense to me. Therefore I just do it naturally and I pay the consequences later."
The right to bare it all — or at least part of it all — is a matter of equality, she said. But the court ruled women have no constitutional right to leave their shirts at home. In fact, cloaking their breasts is a matter of grave public concern, the judges said.
"Restrictions on the exposure of the female breast are supported by the important governmental interest in safeguarding the public’s moral sensibilities," the two-judge panel wrote.
An attorney for Spring Lake did not return a call seeking comment on the decision.
Feeley was twice arrested three years ago while sunbathing at the beach in Spring Lake. Police said she refused to put on a shirt, and was given one after being booked at the station. She left that shirt at the door when she was released, and was again detained later in the day.
Feeley was charged with violating the borough ordinance prohibiting public nudity. She protested, arguing that exposing her breasts was not nudity, and appealed her case. A somber Feeley said Wednesday she planned to ask the state Supreme Court to take up the issue.
"In America, the land of the free and where equality reins free, a woman can’t take off her shirt but a man can," she said. "In another country, a woman can’t take a scarf off her face without getting stoned to death. What’s so different about the two?"
Feeley is no stranger to top-free controversy. In 2005, she was arrested in New York City for walking down a street without a shirt. She sued the city, pointing to a ruling by New York State’s highest court saying woman can go topless in public. The city later paid her $29,000 to settle the suit.
But New Jersey legal precedent cuts a different way. In its ruling, the court relied on a 2001 case — State of New Jersey v. Arlene Vogt — in rejecting Feeley’s argument.
Nudity is allowed at only one place in New Jersey, Gunnison Beach, part of the Gateway National Park at Sandy Hook. The beach, with a tradition of skinny dipping dating to 1974, is controlled by the National Park Service.
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