Changing Into Swimsuit Still Illegal; Some Say City All Wet

In Redondo Beach, the city that proudly named the Goodyear blimp its official municipal bird, it can sometimes be difficult to tell the absurd from the sublime.

Following form, the City Council, in all seriousness, weighed in Tuesday night on a pressing issue: surfers and swimmers who change out of their suits and back into street clothes at the beach. Or vice versa.

A 1970s-era ordinance, rarely enforced, forbids dressing, undressing or disrobing in a public place. The council decided Tuesday to leave the measure just as it is--though it also directed city staff to review it and propose possible changes.

Surfers and swimmers could barely believe that this merited the time and attention of elected officials.

“I lived in New Zealand and girls there go topless and don’t get arrested,” John Dieter, a 31-year-old surfer, said Tuesday while checking out the waves at Avenue A and the Esplanade.

“I’m all for public decency laws but I don’t see any reason to prohibit surfers from changing behind a towel,” said surfer Nate Thern, 26.

Even some city officials could hardly believe it.

“Since when are we the fashion police?” Councilman Bob Pinzler said Tuesday before the meeting.

Pinzler, who was reelected last March, said: “During my campaign, I would knock on doors and people would ask, ‘How can you put up with some of this idiocy?’ I would tell them about the really important things we do.

“But then,” he said, “something like this comes along. And it confirms all the feelings people have about government--the stupid things it spends time doing when it should spend time doing things of import.”

He concluded: “It’s so stupid. It’s beyond belief.”

But not in Redondo Beach, the town without a downtown, where, in recent months, there have been these developments:

* The city manager, Bill Kirchhoff, was fired. After getting a severance package worth an estimated $750,000, he sued in Superior Court, alleging that his reputation has been ruined.

* The longtime city clerk, John Oliver, is now an accused felon. Prosecutors say he forged a license plate registration tab on a van he owned. He has pleaded not guilty and remains on the job.

* The city’s former information services manager, Rick Garcia, is facing felony charges, accused of a conflict of interest in approving a lucrative computer maintenance contract with his roommate. He also was accused of spying on a police officers union meeting; the same day prosecutors declined to file charges in that incident, Garcia was arrested in the conflict-of-interest case. A preliminary hearing is underway in Los Angeles Municipal Court.

* Finally, one of the town’s self-appointed council watchers, Chris Boyle, is suing the city in federal court, alleging that his constitutional rights were violated when he was dragged away from the microphone at council meetings before his three minutes of free speech had lapsed. The city has so far spent at least $165,000 defending the case--enough to hire two, perhaps three, employees. Trial is set for April 14.

Remarkably, even with all these “disruptions,” as one senior city official put it Tuesday, things still do get done in Redondo Beach.

On Feb. 17, for instance, at the previous council meeting, the panel agreed to allow thong bathing suits and to drop a rule that swimsuits stretch at least one inch over belly buttons.

Thank goodness, Pinzler said: “I’m sure the police chief was wondering when he was going to get a measuring stick so he could be checking one inch above the navel.”

The new pro-thong attitude actually stems from more than a decade of study, officials said. So, too, do the issues stemming from what happens in parking lots, bathrooms and under towels as surfers and swimmers complete the contortionist moves it takes to change clothes--moves familiar to anyone who’s ever been to a Southern California beach.

The Harbor Commission put in the years of study. It was charged with updating the rules; swimwear was merely a part of the job, which included such other shoreline concerns as dock access and regulation of wastewater from boats.

The City Council’s job is to consider--and, in the usual course, to approve--the new rules.

Virtually all hands agreed Tuesday that the disrobing ordinance was, as Mayor Greg Hill put it, “poorly written.”

Amid an hour of debate, Police Chief Melvin Nichols argued to keep it on the books. In the four years he’d been chief, he said, it had hardly ever been enforced. But, he said, it gives his officers “some leverage in talking to people.”

“I can’t believe what I heard,” resident Larry Cote told the council. “The police chief wants a worthless ordinance so he can talk to people?”

Voting 4-1, the council approved the entire package--including rules on wastewater and on disrobing at the beach. However, it ordered city staff to write a new undressing ordinance within 30 days. Pinzler cast the dissenting vote.

Afterward, Mayor Hill took stock of the debate.

“If this is the most significant issue and problem in Redondo Beach,” he said, “we are blessed beyond belief.”