FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) – The northern Colorado college town of Fort Collins has retained a ban on women going topless, rejecting efforts to join a movement to remove such indecency laws.
The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday evening to keep a law that prohibits the display of female breasts. The ordinance does not prohibit men from going shirtless, prompting complaints about gender bias.
The hometown of Colorado State University did amend its indecency code to allow public breastfeeding. But otherwise it remains a $250 fine for a woman over the age of 10 to display her breast “below the top of the nipple.”
“It just doesn’t seem right” to allow female toplessness, said Councilman Ray Martinez. “People are going to say, we go to Fort Collins and run around topless. And I don’t want that.”
Other cities, including Denver, New York and the nearby college town of Boulder, have removed all gender-specific language from indecency codes. The city of Chicago is facing a federal lawsuit from a woman challenging as discriminatory her $150 fine for participating in a 2014 “Go Topless Day” protest near Lake Michigan.