Bare breasts, beer allowed at ComFest
Topless women at ComFest will not stop the flow of beer, wine and liquor at the popular festival, the state agreed in federal court Tuesday.
The festival that fills Goodale Park one weekend every summer won a temporary restraining order against the
Ohio Department of Public Safety and the Ohio Division of Liquor Control, which had complained that the festival broke “Rule 52,” which bans “the showing of the female breast with less than a fully opaque covering of any part of the nipple and/ or areola” at venues where alcohol is served.
Tuesday’s order means there will be beer, wine and liquor at the June 23-25 festival. And topless women if they so choose, but that’s not a planned event.
At last year’s festival, an agent with Public Safety’s Ohio Investigative Unit cited festival organizers because volunteers did nothing to prohibit topless women where alcohol was being served.
“No one admitted giving the order” to cite the festival, said Ed Hastie, an attorney representing ComFest.
Assistant Attorney General Charles Febus declined to comment after Tuesday’s hearing before U.S. District Judge Michael H. Watson.
In its request for the temporary restraining order, ComFest officials invoked the protection of the First and 14th amendments, saying the festival “implements its commitment to alternative lifestyles, equal rights and individual freedoms” and rejects as sexist “stereotypical views of proper female attire and patriarchal notions of ownership over females’ bodies.”
The issue of nudity came up last week when state agents met with festival organizers, as they do every year, Hastie said. Volunteers were told that agents would shut down beer, wine and liquor sales if ComFest workers didn’t force topless women to cover up or leave.
During a hearing Monday, Watson asked state officials why the festival was cited after 45 years. The judge also said he understood that Rule 52 pertains to adult establishments.
Festival organizers also argued that state and city laws allow women to walk around topless, and that ComFest does not control the park.
“362 days a year you could be topless in Goodale Park, but not three days of ComFest,” Hastie said after Tuesday’s hearing.
Watson’s questions apparently spurred the agreement between the state and ComFest that says no citations to topless women will be issued during this year’s Comfest “or thereafter.”
The Ohio Division of Liquor Control was named as a defendant because it issues the alcohol permits.