Supreme Court Refuses To Review OC Topless Ban Challenge

OCEAN CITY — The U.S. Supreme Court this week denied a petition to hear a legal challenge of Ocean City’s ordinance prohibiting female toplessness in public.

In what appears to be the end of the line in the dispute over Ocean City’s ordinance prohibiting female toplessness where men are allowed to go shirtless, like the beach and Boardwalk, the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the plaintiffs’ petition for a writ of certiorari. The high court received the petition in December and it was distributed for a conference last Friday.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the petition in a terse, two-word docket entry. For a case that has been climbing the appeals ladder at different levels since it was first filed in U.S. District Court and ultimately denied, the U.S. Supreme Court’s order announced on Tuesday should mean the end.

Attorney Bruce Bright, who represented Ocean City through the various iterations of the case, on Tuesday confirmed the U.S. Supreme Court denied the petition. Bright said from the city’s perspective, the U.S. Supreme Court’s order denying the petition represents the end of litigation challenging the ordinance as the appellants have exhausted all appellate avenues.

“Ocean City is pleased with this latest and final ruling regarding the subject ordinance,” he said. “As the United States District Court and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals held, the City Council acted constitutionally when it passed the ordinance in 2017, and the council’s appropriate legislative decision is not subject to any further judicial challenge.”

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