Why nude beaches in Okanagan, Kamloops are in a legal grey area

There are three well-known nude, or clothing-optional, beaches around Kamloops and the Okanagan, but they aren’t necessarily official.

Nude beaches are a bit of a legal grey area.

Almost all of them are technically unofficial, even if they’re popular and generally accepted by local governments, and if they are well-known then nudists are unlikely to get in trouble with the law.

In the Southern Interior there’s Nipple Point in Salmon Arm, Three Mile Beach in Penticton and part of Mission Flats in Kamloops.

There aren’t any well-known beaches in Kelowna or Vernon that have a high tolerance for nudity. Many years ago Cedar Creek in Kelowna was known for nudity, but it has since become a popular off-leash dog park.

Three Mile Beach is one of the most popular nude beaches in the valley with a long history and a strong community around it. The city said its only job is to maintain the public beach and it doesn’t have any rules saying you have to wear clothes there, but it also doesn’t have a rule allowing beachgoers to be naked.

“Three Mile Beach has a long-standing history of clothing-optional use, but it is not formally designated by the city as a clothing-optional beach. The city does not have a bylaw that specifically permits or prohibits clothing-optional use at this location,” City of Penticton’s communications manager Anna Melnick said in an emailed statement.

This approach from the city wasn’t easily obtained.

In 2015 nudists and local property owners were in disagreement about nudity on the beach and the dispute went to the city, but ten years later the beach is still recognized as a hotspot for nudists.

Kelowna doesn’t have a well-known nude beach and the city’s parks manager Blair Stewart told iNFOnews.ca there’s no plan to unofficially sanction or turn a blind eye to public nudity on the beach anytime soon.

“The City of Kelowna has never designated an official clothing-optional beach. While some park users may have used certain areas in that way in the early 2000s, it was not an intended or sanctioned use. At this time, the city is not considering the creation of clothing-optional beaches,” Stewart said in an emailed statement.

The City of Penticton said it’s the RCMP’s job to handle any public nudity complaints at a beach.

It’s legal for anyone to go topless on a beach in Canada, it’s the bottoms that have to stay on.

Vancouver criminal lawyer Kyla Lee said it’s tricky and uncommon for people to be prosecuted for public nudity at an unofficial but well-known nude beach because of the way the public nudity law is written.

“There is a criminal offence under s. 174 for being publicly nude without reasonable excuse or justification. And that’s where people often find defenses to the nudity allegations when it comes to nude beaches,” Lee said in an email.

There are only two official nude beaches in Canada, Wreck Beach in Vancouver and Hanlan’s Point in Toronto. The rest are unofficial and some are well-known with a long history of nudists or naturists stripping down.

“Wreck Beach in Vancouver… because there have been long-standing cultural tolerances for full nudity there, they operate outside the criminal prosecution sphere,” Lee said.

“Another element that’s necessary is that people be nude in a way that is likely to offend public decency or order; if it’s a nude beach the public decency standard would likely not be met because the expectation is that people will be unclothed.”

Lee said the only time people typically get prosecuted for nudity at an unofficial nude beach is when they are doing something else illegal.

“The prosecution of this offence is rare,” she said. “Typically it is only done where there is some other aggravating element, such as public masturbation or invitation to sexual touching. And even then, the Crown will almost always just rely on the other offences,.”

Greg Snow is the president of the Federation of Canadian Naturists which is a supporter of Three Mile Beach’s naturist, nudist, community.

The federation has a whole page dedicated to dispelling myths around nude beaches, one of them being that it’s a sex thing.

“Don’t build any expectations of having sex just because you’re nude. That’s not there at all. That comes about because most people’s only experience being nude with another person is when they have sex. They’re not used to it,” Snow said.

People generally follow some basic etiquette like not gawking or taking photos and just being friendly and polite, he said.

“If your expectations are there just to have fun, enjoy the sun and wind on your skin you’ll love it. You’ll discover it and you’ll say, ‘why didn’t I do this years ago?’”