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Dewey Beach Town Council plans to discuss possible draft ordinances to prohibit obscene clothing from being worn and obscene language from being spoken on public streets came to an abrupt halt Monday afternoon, Aug. 4.
The discussion items appearing on the agenda for the town’s Friday, Aug. 8 meeting were placed there at the request of Mayor Dell Tush. Tush said an incident regarding clothing worn by two women at the Starboard’s Running of the Bull, seeing foul language on shirts and various other incidents throughout the summer convinced her the ordinances should be considered. Tush said she discussed the issue with the police chief, the town manager and the town attorney.
“My understanding after talking to the chief is there are already ordinances,” Tush said, Sunday, Aug. 3, though she did not say whether the agenda items would be removed.
Commissioner Dale Cooke said the town is dealing with a bigger issue. “The laws need to be applied and enforced uniformly without special conditions for anybody,” Cooke said, adding that whether he personally liked the women’s attire was irrelevant. “It’s against the law or it isn’t. I thought it strange that we would attempt to regulate morality,” he said.
Dewey’s criminal code already includes laws regarding disorderly conduct, lewdness and indecent exposure. Each of the crimes is a class B misdemeanor punishable by up to six months imprisonment and a fine of $50 to $1,150.
The disorderly conduct law prohibits nine types of conduct that include making an unreasonable noise or an offensively coarse utterance, gesture or display, or addressing abusive language to any person. A person who exposes his genitals or does any lewd act in a public place where it’s likely to cause affront or harm is guilty of indecent exposure or lewdness.
Police on duty at the Starboard during it’s July 14 Running of the Bull did not think matador-themed outfits worn by Roberta Hennessy, owner of the Dewey lingerie shop Sea of Seductions, and her employee Tiffany Diffenderfer were lewd or that they resulted in indecent exposure.
However Tush and a woman Tush said complained to her found the outfits offensive. “In my mind the girl had her buttocks exposed and that is not appropriate for out on the street,” Tush said. “A citizen saw her from the back and was very outraged, very upset.”
Tush said she asked police to remove Hennessy and Diffenderfer from the Starboard and the streets and to make them go back to their shop at the Izzy Plaza. The police did so.
Sexy matadors at the Starboard
Hennessy said she and Diffenderfer expected no problems when they dressed up and went to the Starboard where they joined a crowd of at least 1,000 people. Among them were people in a bull costume who pantomimed a lewd act with a person in a cow costume, many young women clad in tiny bikinis much more revealing than the outfit worn by Diffenderfer from all views, and a protestor from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal Costumes with a sign strategically placed between her ample breasts that read “Fake boobs, not fur!”
“We called ourselves the Mamador and the Matador,” said Hennessy. She said she was surprised when a Starboard employee came to her at the bar to tell her there was an officer outside who needed to see her.
Hennessy said the officer told her he had to have two officers escort her and Diffenderfer back to their store. “He told me he knew it was wrong and that we were not breaking the law, but he had to do what the mayor said,” Hennessy said.
Cpl. Henry Powell, a six year veteran of the Dewey Police Department who completed his last day as one of its employees on Aug. 3, said the mayor stopped him on the road and told him a lady and child complained and said Hennessy and Diffenderfer shouldn’t be out in public. Powell said he had already seen the women twice and saw nothing wrong with their attire.
“If it was just me, I wouldn’t have done that, but someone was over my head,” Powell said. “I saw a lot worse on the run and I didn’t want to do it, but the mayor signs the checks.”
During an Aug. 3 interview Hennessy said the mayor and police violated her constitutional rights. She added that she complied and returned to her shop to avoid a public confrontation.
Diffenderfer, Hennessy and the police walking with them passed Tush and her husband on the way back to the lingerie store. Tush told them their clothing was obscene to which Hennessy responded that it was much more clothing than seen on most women wearing bathing suits around the town.
“This is not against the law,” said Diffenderfer.
“It will be,” said Tush, vowing to make an ordinance.
More ordinances?
Tush said the existence of similar ordinances means the possible obscenity ordinances scheduled for discussion are not big issues. Asked if the discussion items will be removed from the agenda because other similar ordinances exist, Tush said she did not know and would have to discuss the matter with the town manager. She gave the same response when asked if they had been included as agenda items in error.
“Tomorrow we’ll know if it’s on or off the agenda,” Tush said. As of 1:15 p.m. Monday, Aug. 4, the items were on the agenda. Town Manager Gordon Elliott telephoned the Cape Gazette at 2:40 p.m. and said the items had been dismissed.
Police Chief Sam Mackert and Town Attorney Glenn Mandalas could not be reached for comment.
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