Topless Women In Public Is Legal, NYPD Reminds Cops After Holly Van Voast Arrests

NYPD got served!

Holly Van Voast, a Bronx photographer and performance artist, got tired of getting arrested every time she went out topless. She has stripped in Times Square, on the Staten Island Ferry and in Grand Central Terminal, only to name a few.

She filed a lawsuit against the city and the Police Department, and listed 10 episodes between 2011 and 2012 in which the police detained, arrested or issued summonses to Van Voast for baring her breasts. The last episode, outside a Hooters restaurant in Midtown, ended with the artist being taken to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation.

In the lawsuit she seeks compensation from the city and alleges punitive damages from several named and unnamed officers for her treatment, which the suit says constituted civil rights violations.

All of the prior complaints against her were dismissed or dropped because the state's highest court ruled more than two decades ago that baring one's chest in public for noncommercial activity is legal for men and women.

That's probably the main reason why a "strange" command was read at the roll calls earlier this year. They basically said that women are guilty of no crime for "simply exposing their breasts in public."

According to the New York Times, the order was disclosed in an official memorandum contained in the lawsuit Holly Van Voast filed. The memo made clear that bare-breasted women should not be cited for public lewdness, indecent exposure or any other section of the penal law.

The memo also stated that if a topless person draws a lot of attention, officers should "give a lawful order to disperse the entire crowd and take enforcement action" against those who do not comply.

Officers "shall not enforce any section of law, including penal law sections 245.00 (public lewdness) and 245.01 (exposure of a person) against female individuals who are simply exposing their breasts in public," continued the memo, that also reminded police officers that there are times when they can detain, arrest or give tickets to men or women for being indecent in public.

"If the actions of any individual rise to the level of a lewd act (e.g. masturbation, simulated sexual act), regardless of whether the individual is clothed above their waist," or if the person is naked below the waist "and is not entertaining or performing in a play, exhibition, show or entertainment."

"I feel that any form of nudity should be protected. It's the basest human state," expressed Van Voast in the past, and she feels that "no one is brave enough" to join her in her toplessness.