City Council OKs Public Nudity Ban

The City Council has outlawed public nudity in a bid to control any future adult businesses.

Violators can be subject to fines or jail time.

City leaders also agreed to begin crafting an ordinance governing such businesses as strip joints or adult bookstores. Thousand Oaks has none now, but if one wanted to open here, the city currently has no law to regulate its location, City Atty. Mark Sellers said.

The proposed law would designate areas of the city for adult businesses and establish rules for owners, including limiting hours of operation and preventing tipping and the touching of customers.

Sellers said the nudity ban is part of the city’s effort to control any potential adult entertainment businesses. The city can’t ban nude dancing, but it can prohibit “the conduct of being nude in public,” Sellers said.

He said the city occasionally gets complaint calls about displays of public nudity but said the new law wasn’t sparked by any one incident or long-term problem. Other California cities, including neighboring Simi Valley, are considering passing similar laws.

Simi Valley’s problems with adult businesses in part prompted Thousand Oaks leaders to pursue the new ordinance. Simi Valley leaders are still fighting a lawsuit--now before the U.S. Supreme Court--stemming from a strip club owner who said the City Council violated his civil rights by denying his project.