Naked defiance of nude ban



Despite being warned not to strip down, naturists kept alive the "tradition" of baring it all on the beach near Mpenjati Nature Reserve this festive season. "Naturists were at the beach sunbathing nude and no one harmed them or told them to stop. That beach has been an unofficial naturist beach for more than 20 years, so it is a tradition. How does one stop a tradition?" asked SA National Naturists Association chairman Serge Pavlovic yesterday.At the start of the festive season a month ago, the Hibiscus Coast Municipality confirmed that it had received a letter from Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC Nomusa Dube-Ncube stating that no nudity would be allowed as the bylaw to legalise the beach as a nudist venue was not formalised yet.Dube-Ncube instructed the municipality to remove signs warning beachgoers that they might encounter nudists and to uphold the current bylaw.The municipality relaxed the current bylaw by allowing nudists on the beach when it approved an application to declare the 250m stretch of sand KwaZulu-Natal's first naturist beach in 2014.Municipality spokesman Simon April yesterday said the bylaw to allow nudity on the beach was in the process of being gazetted."The letter from the MEC was to confirm that the new bylaw was being gazetted, therefore the current bylaw is still in place."It doesn't mean that approval for the nudist beach has been taken away. It is still going to happen," he said.Pavlovic said naturists were "happy to wait a few more months" before celebrating their victory."We are not reinventing the wheel here."Naturists have been going there for decades. We are willing to wait until it is formal," the chairman said.