OCTOBER 31, 2009
Boulder's Naked Halloween Streak May Be Coming to an End
Runners Are Out of Their Gourds, Wearing Just a Pumpkin; Police Chief Calls It a Crime
By STEPHANIE SIMON
BOULDER, Colo. -- This city has always taken pride in its liberal-to-the-point-of-loony reputation. But this Halloween, one of its wackiest traditions is under siege: the Naked Pumpkin Run. The event is exactly what its name implies. Scores of men and women pour into downtown streets for a late-night jog, wearing not a stitch between the jack-o'-lanterns on their heads and the sneakers on their feet. For nearly a decade, naked pumpkin runners did their thing unmolested, stampeding through the frigid dark past crowds of admirers who hooted, hollered and tossed candy. But last year the run attracted more than 150 participants, and Police Chief Mark Beckner fears things are getting out of hand. "It's a free-for-all," he says. So he intends to stop it. He will station more than 40 officers on the traditional four-block route tonight, with two SWAT teams patrolling nearby. All have orders to arrest gourd-topped streakers as sex offenders.
Runners and their fans are outraged. This is not the free-spirited Boulder they know and love. "It kind of reminds me of what's happening in Tehran," says Andy Schmidt, a lawyer. "They're pre-emptively outlawing a gathering." The American Civil Liberties Union has fired off a letter accusing the police of violating citizens' constitutional rights to express whatever it is they're expressing when they slip hollowed-out pumpkins over their heads and race buck naked down the Pearl Street pedestrian mall. The annual rite "seems somewhat quixotic," concedes Judd Golden, chairman of the ACLU's Boulder County chapter, "but our Bill of Rights does not judge the content of free expression." At a recent forum for city council candidates, all 10 participants said they disapproved of the threatened crackdown. Even Mayor Matt Appelbaum, who supports the police, admits to a tinge of worry that arresting Halloween streakers will tarnish Boulder's reputation as, well, Boulder.
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Last year, in a first tentative move against the pumpkin runners, police ticketed a dozen participants, including Mr. Abramov. The Pumpkin 12, as they became known, all had the charges against them dropped or reduced to disorderly conduct in exchange for a few hours' community service. This year, police plan to make a stronger statement. They are on edge not just about the pumpkin run but also about an outdoor costume party that could draw thousands of rowdy revelers to the pedestrian mall. So this time, officers won't mess around with handing out tickets; they expect to make arrests.. It's not illegal to be naked in downtown Boulder. In fact, the city has had a long, proud history of nudity. Hundreds of University of Colorado students dashed across campus in the buff in 1974, in a vain attempt to set a Guinness World Record. More recently, Boulder has played host to an annual Naked Bike Ride to protest dependence on fossil fuels. And the Boulder Daily Camera, the local newspaper, serves up a steady stream of stories about clothes-free joggers and nudist gardeners.
Casting about for a law to apply, since nudity per se is not illegal, police hit upon the state's indecent exposure statute, which makes it a Class 1 misdemeanor for anyone to knowingly expose his or her genitals in circumstances "likely to cause affront or alarm." Given that the Naked Pumpkin Run starts at 11 p.m., long after young trick-or-treaters have retired, and given that the route is packed with fans who come out specifically to see the event, runners argue that it's absurd to think their prank is causing either affront or alarm. Even if the run does catch a few people by surprise, "the joy it brings overall far outweighs the one or two people who could be offended," says Callie Webster, who is 22 and a veteran pumpkinhead. Police acknowledge they have not been flooded with pumpkin-run-related complaints, but say that's beside the point. A throng of naked people with jack-o-lanterns on their heads is, by definition, an alarming sight, Chief Beckner says. Therefore, it's illegal.
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The looming threat has scrambled planning for the pumpkin run, which is loosely organized even in the best of years. (This being Boulder, the only hard-and-fast rule is that participants must put their pumpkins into a compost heap after the run.).. With so many runners spooked, some organizers are quietly planning to outflank the police by taking their pumpkins elsewhere. Come nightfall, they intend to doff their clothes and don their gourds in a nearby, unnamed but presumably less prudish city. A restaurant called Hapa Sushi offers an alternative for those who remain loyal to Boulder: It's handing out free orange undies, including barely-there thongs, imprinted with the slogan "Run Responsibly." The Naked Pumpkin Run is not for everyone. It's hot and smelly and goopy inside the jack-o'-lanterns. Even hollowed out, the pumpkins can weigh 25 to 30 pounds, so they are heavy and tough to balance; veteran runners learn to carve big ears that can double as handles.
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125693458626119361.html (subscription)
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A1
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