Seattle pitches plan to preserve, limit nudity at Denny Blaine Park
SEATTLE – To try to preserve Denny Blaine Park’s identity as a nude gathering space, the city of Seattle is suggesting dividing the area into sections and adding barriers to block unwanted views into the controversial Lake Washington park.
The city is also proposing added surveillance by park rangers in its plan for suppressing illegal activity, which a judge demanded this month as part of an ongoing lawsuit brought by neighbors.
The proposal, lawyers for the city argue, strikes a balance between the rights of adjacent landowners and the LGBTQIA+ community’s historical use of the Park as a nude gathering space.”
In a statement Monday, neighbors of the park, who sued the city over alleged apathy toward lewd and illegal behavior around the park, criticized the plan.
“The plan ignores the park’s ‘free-for-all’ reality and growing risk of serious harm to park goers and the community,” Lee Keller, spokesperson for Denny Blaine Park for All, said in a statement.
In addition to submitting its plan Monday, the city is also asking King County Superior Court Judge Samuel Chung to reconsider his decision demanding a plan in the first place. The judge’s finding that the city had not committed enough enforcement resources to the park stretches beyond his authority to dictate how the city uses its police, lawyers argue.
Denny Blaine Park has become a hot spot for debates over the priorities of Seattle law enforcement, the duty to crack down on general disorder and the preservation of spaces important to LGBTQ+ people in the city.
Residents, the past two years, near the park have sought ways to cut out nudity and lewd behavior, including by offering to pay for a playground at the park.
Others have pushed back, arguing the park holds significance for the people who frequent it and represents a unique place in Seattle that should not be redefined. They agree lewd behavior there is an issue, but contend that can be addressed without banning nudity altogether.
The neighbors had asked Chung to close the park temporarily, arguing activity had crossed the line into public nuisance that was being ignored by the city. Seattle’s lawyers disagreed, saying that while the city endorsed nudity at the park, it did not endorse the public masturbation, sex and drug use that occurred there and therefore could not be held liable for its occurrence.
Chung sided with the neighbors, but declined their request to close the park, instead demanding a plan from the city to eradicate illegal activity as well as nudity “as constituted.”
In its response, the city argues the judge’s words – as constituted – give it wiggle room to redefine how nudity occurs at the beach. By cordoning it off to specific sections of the park’s 2 acres, the naked behavior is no longer constituted in the same way.
A hearing is scheduled for next week on the city’s motion to reconsider Chung’s ruling. No date has been set to consider the city’s plan for the park.