Nudist Camp Gets Temporary Reprieve

A Superior Court judge ruled Thursday that a Topanga Canyon nudist camp may stay open temporarily, despite a decision by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors last month to close it.

Judge Warren H. Deering’s ruling will let the camp keep operating until a May 28 hearing, when the board will be asked to show why Elysium Fields should not stay open until a lawsuit filed by the operators of the camp is resolved. In the meantime, the ruling will prevent the county from filing criminal proceedings or taking other action to close the camp, said Stephen F. Rohde, an attorney for Elysium.

Led by conservative Supervisor Mike Antonovich, on April 1 the board refused to give Elysium Fields the necessary permit to continue operating. Antonovich argued that the camp, in an area zoned for light agricultural use, is a threat to public health and safety and a commercial intrusion into the rural neighborhood of 7,000 people.

Lawsuit Filed

On Tuesday, Elysium Institute, operator of the private, clothing-optional park, filed suit in Superior Court seeking to overturn the board’s decision. The lawsuit claims that a county ordinance on which the board based its vote is unconstitutional and specifically violates rights to freedom of expression and association, Rohde said.

The zoning dispute between the county and Elysium, which opened in 1968, has continued for more than 15 years, with each side spending more than $150,000.

Other residents living near the secluded nudist camp do not see the fight as a zoning issue, but rather as a struggle between anti-nudity moralists on one side and those who would “live and let live” on the other.

“They have tried to translate those personal feelings into law, and that’s what we’ve been fighting over for the past 15 years,” Rohde said.