Barcelona bans public nudity

If you were planning on visiting Barcelona to enjoy the freedom of public nudity, you may want to change your itinerary. Recently, city officials banned nudity and "near nudity" in the city center, imposing a fine on violators.

Lawmakers, backed by the tourism business leaders and the local Catalan newspaper El Periodico, are trying to promote a less carefree look within city areas, expecting people to put on more clothes when they leave the beaches and enter the urban center.

For many years, Barcelona treated public nudity as an issue of personal freedom. But now concerns for tourists interests and the sensibilities of the local populace have led to a change in regulations.

According to a deputy mayor interviewed by the New York Times, the law is less about banning nudity than it is about appropriate attire at museums and churches, where people sometimes wear the same minimal clothing as on the beach.

But that's small comfort to nudists like Jacint Ribas, who routinely rides his bicycle through the city wearing nothing more than a smile. "This is nudaphobia," says Ribas, who is also chairman of the Association for the Defense of Nakedness. Ribas was quoted earlier this year in an article in El País. "Elections are coming up," he adds, "so we got it in the neck."

The new law may bring an end to sightings of the infamous tattooed (and hung) nudist (seen at the Aurel Manea Photography site), naked tourists like the one seen in the photo above, or certain YouTube videos.