A public hearing and vote are scheduled tonight for the city council to repeal an antiquated ban on bathing attire on the boardwalk.
The ban comes from a section of an ordinance passed in 1958 which states, “No person clad in bathing attire shall be on the boardwalk or the public walks adjacent thereto.”
It attracted national attention recently when former city councilwoman Louise Murray urged the council to begin enforcing it again.
“Asbury Park was known for being the classiest boardwalk in the summertime. You never went down there unless you were dressed,” Murray said at a June council meeting. “I’ll be darned if I want to be standing at a bar and have somebody slither up in a Speedo or bikini that shouldn’t be in a bathing suit.”
“We have other decency ordinances,” Mayor Ed Johnson said when the repeal ordinance was introduced last month. “We all wish sometimes it could be the 1950s again, but it can’t.”
The regular city council meeting is scheduled tonight for 7 p.m. at the municipal complex on Main Street.
