Nude Sunbathers Want Deputies to Back Off at San Onofre Beach : It’s a Case of Clothes Encounters of the Turf Kind

Considering that they are all dedicated Southern California nudists, the sunbathers at the south end of San Onofre State Beach spend a lot of time with their clothes on.

This summer they have had to, at least on the days when San Diego County sheriff’s deputies swing by on their newly aggressive beach patrol, employing stealth and binoculars to catch the nudists with their pants down.

Deputies start their patrols by spying on illegally exposed bodies from the edge of the steep bluffs overlooking the beach, just south of the Orange County border. Some of the nudists, on the lookout since the deputies stepped up their efforts in June, wave back and even point their cameras up at the cliffs.

Tactical Moves

By the time the deputies reach the bottom of the cliff, the nudists either have discreetly covered themselves or have moved a few feet over the state property line to the neighboring Camp Pendleton Marine base, out of the deputies’ jurisdiction. The deputies then ask for assistance from the Marines, who often route the bathers back over the line so the deputies can issue citations.

The game is repeated each weekend, and the score so far is: deputies, 88 citations; nudists, 88 protests. The deputies want the nudists off their turf. The nudists want the deputies to take their rules and go home.

Capt. Bill Knowles, commander of the sheriff’s station in Encinitas, said his deputies are just doing their jobs.

“It would be silly to have just a carte blanche, open, public nude beach in violation of the law,” he said. “Don’t pass a law, hire me to enforce it, and then come back and complain that it doesn’t mean anything because it’s victimless.”

Knowles, who is in his first summer in command of the station, said the increased citations are not part of a purposeful crackdown. He said he thought there were more nudists on the beach this year but said he has not received complaints from other beachgoers.

Backward Step Seen

But to veteran nudists, the enforcement efforts seem a step backward in a state that historically has led the way in claiming nudity as a cultural birthright.

“We have more people practicing nudism than any three or four states,” said Hap Hathaway, a Los Angeles resident and past president of the 30,000-member American Sunbathers’ Assn. “Yet we’ve got this kind of hassle. I would think we would go the other way.”

Bolstered by tradition and an unbending belief in their right to peel down, the nudists who come from as far away as Los Angeles County, have vowed to keep their on-again, off-again ritual going until the deputies wear out. They see San Onofre, where they bask half a mile away from the eyes of other bathers, as their last stronghold.

The southern end of San Onofre State Beach attracted hundreds of nudists each weekend from Orange, Riverside and Los Angeles counties even before it was leased to the state by Camp Pendleton in 1979. The World Guide to Nude Beaches and Recreation describes the area as “an ideal spot for nude sunbathing,” with only one drawback--the view of the San Onofre nuclear power plant to the north.

In 1979, state Department of Parks and Recreation Director Russell Cahill announced public hearings to designate areas of six state beaches, including San Onofre, as clothing-optional beaches. But Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. called the idea “inappropriate,” and nudity has remained illegal on all state beaches, although the law is not always strictly enforced. Last summer at this time, sheriff’s deputies had made 28 arrests at San Onofre.

Ranger Policy

The nudists, arguing that their crime has no victims, want the deputies to adopt the policy that state park rangers have followed since 1979, ticketing nudists only when they receive complaints from other bathers.

State lifeguards at San Onofre say they have received few complaints about beach nudity. Though Marines run off the trespassers at Camp Pendleton on the deputies’ request, Capt. Russ Thurman, a Marine spokesman, said, “They’re not like the top of our priorities.”

The nudists so far have made no organized effort to combat the arrests.