It all began on May 17, 1990. Germany was in the process of being reunified. The United States had recently invaded Panama. Nelson Mandela had just been released from a South African prison. And a conflict over revealing bathing suits on Sarasota’s public beaches was about to heat up.
Todd Keefe, then 27 years old, was arrested on May 17 on North Lido Beach, along with three other men and one woman. Their crime? Wearing a thong bathing suit bottom.
Although public nudity had not been allowed on City of Sarasota beaches for decades, in 1985, the City Commission made it official, by approving a definition of “naked” that persists to this day. The city defines being “naked” as being “insufficiently clothed,” which means that a person has not covered, “with a fully opaque covering,” one’s genitals or pubic area, “the areola of the female breast” or one’s “anal cleft.”
That meant you weren’t supposed to wear a thong on a city beach. At the time, however, Sarasota police spokesman Russ Nugent admitted that although such bathing suits had been technically illegal for years, the law had not been enforced.
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https://www.sarasotamagazine.com/fashion-and-shopping/2023/09/sarasota-thongs