WHAT'S THE NEWS? NUDE BEACH ADVOCATES BEGINS “$2 BILL” CAMPAIGN IN SANTA BARBARA COUNTY

NUDE BEACH ADVOCATES BEGINS “$2 BILL” CAMPAIGN IN SANTA BARBARA COUNTY

Starting May 12, supporters of the local effort to re-establish a clothing-optional area at Bates Beach will begin saturating the Ventura and Santa Barbara County beach communities with $2 bills.

The unusual campaign is the brainchild of the Southern California Naturist Association and the Nude Beach Alliance, whose members are spearheading the drive to bring back the designated clothes-free section of the beach at the Ventura-Santa Barbara County line, just north of Rincon Point.

“The beach was allowed to be nudist friendly for over thirty years,” said SCN President Gary Mussell. “Up to 200 nudists gathered on the far end of the beach away from everyone else and there was never any trouble.” He said many of the regulars used to go into the City of Carpinteria for dinner on weekend evenings and spend a lot of tourist money in town. All that went away after sheriff deputies decided to enforce the statute beginning in 1999. By 2000, after issuing hundred of tickets weekend after weekend, the nudists finally abandoned their piece of adopted sand.

Still, the dream of the nude beach never really died in Santa Barbara County, said Mussell. “For years, whenever we mentioned the beach to people, the response was always: “Oh yeah, I remember. I liked that place. What ever happened to it? Can you get it back?”

“We waited for the beach had been taken over by the bathing suit crowd but they left Bates soon after the nudists did,” Mussell said. He pointed out that on summer weekends now, the beach rarely has more than two dozen people along its entire 1-mile stretch. The beach is not kept clean and it is a known hangout for drug dealers and “men in the bushes.”

“We think the beaches are for everyone’s use, not just for those who want to restrict groups with a different way of life. Because we saw nobody else using the beach, we decided to do a reality check to see just how many locals DID want the nude beach back. To our surprise, the response was pretty overwhelming. I think we only got two negative reactions over the two months we conducted our informal survey.” So to demonstrate to the local merchants to purchasing potential of the nudists if they are allowed back, SCNA came up with the idea of using $2 bills to purchase food and other items when they went into town. “The $2 bill is hardly ever used by the general public,” said Mussell. “So we adopted it as our currency of choice so that merchants have a quantitative way to know a lot of us are around Carpinteria and we are serious about getting back our beach.”

The group makes a pointed effort to come to Carpinteria and Santa Barbara on weekends and to spend money there, always paying with $2 bills. “As word has gotten out, we are starting to get recognized, said Mussell. “We ask only that the merchants don’t keep the bills but pass them along to their own customers as a subtle way of showing they support our right to our own designated beach.”

The $2 bill campaign will continue through the summer months.

For more information about the $2 bill campaign, email the Nude Beach Alliance at nudebeachalliance@yahoo.com.

Affiliated with the Southern California Naturist Association (SCNA) 23679 Calabasas Rd #160 Calabasas CA 91302-1502 (818) 225-2273