Topless females not welcome in Guelph pools

GUELPH, Ont. - The city where Ontario women won the right to appear topless in public is preparing a policy to bar women from baring their breasts in city-owned pools.

"We need to have a policy to deal with it," said community services director Gus Stahlmann, who will submit a draft policy to the city's community services committee in May.

Stahlmann said it was his decision to come up with the policy and not something that was sparked by public pressure.

Guelph is one of several Ontario municipalities trying to develop policies and bylaws in response to a recent Ontario Court of Appeal decision. The court ruled Gwen Jacob of Guelph did not commit an indecent act when she took off her shirt on a sweltering day in July 1991.

In February, 34-year-old Fatima Pereira Henson of nearby Cambridge was charged with trespassing after swimming bare-breasted at a city pool. She did it to protest the decision by the municipality to require females over age 5 to cover up despite the court ruling in Jacob's favor.

Jacob, who has stepped out of the limelight to concentrate on raising her daughter and running a business, is surprised by the municipal efforts to keep females covered up. She doubts the right to appear topless in public will be superceded by local bylaws and policies.

"I don't think they (bylaws) are going to have any teeth," Jacob said.

Stahlmann expects some women will follow Pereira Henson's lead and he wants to be prepared. He is working on the new policy with his colleagues in Kitchener-Waterloo and Cambridge and it will be reviewed by the legal department.

Stahlmann suspects the users of the pools would not want females swimming bare-breasted.

"The pool is a family facility," he said.