[UPDATED] Hoping to prevent a repeat of embarrassing -- and much-publicized -- instances of public nudity that occurred last summer, the town of Brattleboro, Vermont is considering enacting an emergency anti-nudity ordinance.

The town selectboard will meet Tuesday, July 17th to pass a 30-day ordinance that would ban public nudity. A proposed permanent ordinance terms public nudity as "a nuisance for commerce," according to the Brattleboro Reformer newspaper.

[UPDATE: The emergency ordinance was in fact passed, by a 3-2 margin.]

Being naked in public is not against the law in Vermont; there is no statewide statute addressing public nudity, and each town is allowed to decide for itself.

Brattleboro has long had a tradition of public expression and a live-and-let-live attitude going back to the 1960s and earlier. And Vermont was the site of a number of communes in the 1960s. But when teenagers went nude around town last summer it created a clash between that tradition and merchants' and some residents' desire to keep their town an attractive tourist destination.

Many anti-nudity phone calls were received by the town manager's office following an incident on July 6th when a 68-year-old Arizona man wearing only a fanny pack and sandals walked around town during the Brattleboro Gallery Walk, a once-a-month event that attracts visitors to the town's art galleries, which stay open in the evening for the occasion.

I was in Brattleboro last week visiting family last week and fortunately did not see any AARP members, or anyone else, parading around in the altogether.

The ordinance being proposed won't completely ban public nudity in Brattleboro, just along certain main streets, and within 250 feet of schools and churches or other places of worship, and maybe the town's main park.

For those interested in the pro-nudity case, I found a Web site called "Naked in Vermont," which features the slogan "Nudists and skinny-dippers in the Green Mountain State." There are links in the site to such things as "Naked Friends," "Naked Bike Ride," "Naked Hiking," "Nude Videos," and even "Naked Photography" and "Nudist Weather."

I'm not sure if they have any info on how to avoid exposure to deer ticks and mosquitoes while in the buff...