Judge Sides With Nudists in Swimsuit Dispute

Municipal officials who tried to ban a nude swim club from holding planned members-only late-night pool parties in a town-owned suburban Vancouver, British Columbia, facility need to lighten up, a Canadian judge says.

Dismissing claims that swimming in the buff creates a health hazard and threatens to reduce the overtime pay of prudish lifeguards who won't volunteer to work at an indoor pool filled with nudists, Justice Paul Williamson held in a Thursday ruling that townspeople in Surrey "shocked by what they had neither seen nor heard, but suspected" need to mind their own business, reports Reuters.

"For those who came of age in the 1960s," the judge said, "skinny-dipping would hardly seem to be a threat to the moral fiber of western civilization."