SUN-BATHING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 285, 24 April 1913, Page 7

SUN-BATHING.

RESTRICTIVE REGULATIONS IN

AUCKLAND.

Per Press Association.

Auckland, April 21. The City Council lias just adopted a by-law which is designed to prevent beach bathevs from loitering about in their bathing costumes, either before entering or after leaving the water. The regulation has given rise to some controversy.

The Star, referring to l.lie subject, says:—"The necessity for putting some restriction on the practice of 'sunbathing,' even in the modified form in which it has become common here, has long since been evident to every .responsible person who has walked about our benches (luring the summer, and in our opinion the City Council has not I been either precipitate or unduly stringent in its action. Mixed bathing when suitable costume is worn we have always supported, and wo still maintain that "it is entirely unobjectionable when properly regulated, but though lying in the sun in bathing attire may lie very pleasant for the bather, it is obviously open to serious objection, especially when the practice is followed by a very large number of men or women on the very - restricted area available on most of our beaches. There is very little space to move about in on Shelly Beach, for ex-, ample, or at any or our more popular bathing resorts, and it seems to us that it should hardly be necessary to emphasise the objectionable character of the spectacle presented by a large number of almost entirely nude men and women lying about in more or less unpicturesque attitude in the garments in which they have just emerged from the water. We do not suppose that the people of Sydney are extreme purists on such questions, but at Manly and other great bathing centres around Sydney regulations to prevent loitering or lying about the beaches in bathing costume arc rigidly enforced. What is necessary on the great open course of bench at Manly is in our opinion still more necessary on the very limited area at Shelly Beach, and we hope that the new City Council will endorse this view of the case emphatically when the by-huv is submitted to it for confirmation. Without such a regulation the question will very soon be raised whether mixed bathing ought not to be prohibited altogether."