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Flagrant nudity on Dog Island disturbing

By THERESA BLACKWELL
Published September 24, 2006

DUNEDIN - Dog Island, a little sandspit in the Gulf of Mexico, is apparently becoming a popular spot for sun worshippers who want to get tan all over.

The sight of nude bathers is disturbing at least one local resident, but rangers for the Florida Recreation and Parks Division say they will not stop people from going au natural on Dog Island if they want to.

Situated a few yards off the northwest coast of Honeymoon Island, Dog Island is usually accessible only by boat. However, at low tide bathers can easily wade across the small channel separating the two sides.

By boat or by foot, quite a few people are gravitating to the isolated island on weekends to bathe without bathing suits. Last Sunday a Clearwater woman encountered a flock of them when she took some friends on a shelling expedition.

"About 30 kids, male and female, were cavorting around nude on the beach," the woman, who asked not to be identified, recounted Tuesday. "They were very flagrant."

She objected that the activity is illegal and would keep her from taking children there shelling.

But Capt. Charles Brannaka, superintendent for the Florida Recreation and Parks Division's Caladesi Island station said Tuesday the nudity on Dog Island is not illegal. While larger state-owned islands like Honeymoon, Caladesi and Anclote Key have "controlled" beaches where nudity is banned, he said, smaller islands are considered "uncontrolled" areas.

The woman's complaint is the first, he said.

"It would be a shame to waste a man out there on the weekend to arrest nude bathers," said Brannaka, who oversees 10 rangers. "They're really not hurting anyone; they're not getting drunk. They just want to take their clothes off. It goes on at all of the little offshore islands."

Sept. 25, 1980

Parks official: Nude bathing is illegal

DUNEDIN - Nude bathing on Dog Island is illegal, Capt. Charles Brannaka of the Florida Recreation and Parks Division said Wednesday.

Clarifying statements he previously made to a Times reporter, Brannaka said that a Florida statute forbids nudity in public places.

"It's quite possible that I will have to put a ranger out there on weekends now," he said, "I've been getting so many calls about it today."

Sept. 29, 1980

7 arrested for nude bathing on Dog Island

DUNEDIN - Seven nude sunbathers were arrested on a crowded sandspit northwest of Dunedin's Honeymoon Island early Sunday afternoon in a raid by four plainclothes sheriff's deputies.

Sheriff's spokesman Merrell Stebbins said the seven were charged with indecent exposure, a misdemeanor. All of the persons arrested - six men and one woman - were charged at the scene and then released on their own recognizance, Stebbins said.

Stebbins acknowledged that among the 50 or so clothed and unclothed bathers, some without suits eluded arrest. But he said catching them all was impossible.

"With the first arrest," Stebbins said, "the others were running off and getting dressed. It would have been impossible to identify later which ones were dressed and which were not."

Pinellas History is compiled by Times staff writer Theresa Blackwell. You can reach her at tblackwell@sptimes.com or 727 445-4170.

[Last modified September 24, 2006, 09:09:30]