Seattle Dumps Plan to Put Childrens Playground Next to Nude Beach

Toward the end of November, the City of Seattle released information that it was contemplating putting a new children’s playground near a nude beach. Now, that plan has been scuttled.

  The city pulls the plug on the playground location

Denny Blaine Park has had a colorful history since the 1980’s, was known as a popular meet-up place for same-sex persons, and it was the city’s only clothing-optional beach.

The city wanted to locate a new park near the beach area’s northwest corner. City officials wanted the park because according to their research, the surrounding neighborhoods were underserved with play facilities for children.

The proposal would have built a $500K park well within sight of the beach. but now that is done.

 MyNorthwest.com reports the park proposal has been shut down due to “pushback” from residents and other groups. According to MyNorthwest.com:

“The Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation held a community feedback meeting on Dec. 6. regarding the proposed playground. Members of the LGBTQ community spoke out against the project, saying that Denny Blaine Park’s nude beach is a place for queer and trans people to feel confident in their bodies and feel safe.”

Washington state law does not make public nudity in and of itself a crime, but it becomes criminal an indecent exposure if “any open and obscene exposure of his or her person or the person of another knowing that such conduct is likely to cause reasonable affront or alarm.” (WA State Law RCW  9A.88.010).

The city will go back to the drawing board and begin the process of attempting to locate a park in the general vicinity of the beach and surrounding neighborhoods.