VIRGINIA BEACH
City officials said Monday that they plan to drop obscenity charges filed against an Abercrombie & Fitch store manager at Lynnhaven Mall, where police confiscated two large posters of partially dressed models over the weekend.
The Abercrombie & Fitch promotional photographs appear in the fashion retailer’s stores throughout the country, including at MacArthur Center in Norfolk. One photo depicts the backs of three shirtless men, including one holding jeans that hover well below his waistline and reveal the top of his buttocks. The other, as described by a Virginia Beach police spokesman, shows a topless woman with her hand covering a portion of her breast.
A police officer cited the store manager, Brendon Payne, Saturday with violating the city code and issued him a summons to appear March 3 in General District Court.
The city attorney plans to recommend dropping the charges at that time. Deputy Police Chief Jim Cervera said the Abercrombie & Fitch posters would be returned to the store immediately.
Deputy City Attorney Mark Stiles said city officials decided Monday that the photos depicted nudity but did not fully violate the city code, which outlaws “obscene materials in a business that is open to juveniles.”
The city would have a difficult time proving in court that the posters appealed to prurient interests, were patently offensive to the prevailing standards of the adult community and had no serious artistic value, Stiles said.
Of the photo of the three men, Stiles said, “You might see that typical vision walking down the streets.”
Still, Stiles said, the officer had probable cause to issue a summons. The standards are higher when the case goes to court, he said.
“This was a tough case,” he said. “Abercrombie & Fitch’s advertising is designed to go right up to the line.”
Public attention to the incident had nothing to do with the decision to drop the charges, Cervera said.
Although police spokesman Adam Bernstein initially indicated that customer complaints prompted the officer’s action, he said Monday that he was unable to provide the number of complaints that police received. The officer, who works part time at Lynnhaven Mall in his police uniform to supplement the shopping center’s security, took spoken complaints and did not record them, Bernstein said.
That officer, identified by Bernstein only as Sgt. K. Reilly, had visited the store before Saturday and warned the manager to remove the images, leaving a copy of the city code and his business card. Bernstein said Reilly declined to comment further on the events.
Abercrombie & Fitch Co. officials pledged Monday to defend the company and Payne, who would face a fine of up to $2,000 and up to a year in jail if convicted on the charges. Thomas Lennox, a spokesman for the retailer, called the citation an “incredible overreaction by city officials” and said he knows of no other complaints nationwide about the promotion.
“These photos are tame,” said Lennox, based at the retailer’s headquarters in New Albany, Ohio.
Lynnhaven Mall officials said they received few, if any, comments about the Abercrombie & Fitch posters and had nothing to do with the Police Department’s action. “We had very little response from customers about this particular issue,” said John Westbrook, the mall’s general manager.
MacArthur Center officials said they have received no complaints about the posters in the downtown Norfolk store.
While shopping at Lynnhaven Mall on Monday, Terry Lewis said his daughter likes to visit Abercrombie & Fitch.
“I don’t think they should advertise like that because it’s the kind of message they send to the youth,” said Lewis, who lives in the Beach. “But they’re really selling sex.”
His friend, Itzel Vargas of Panama, said the Abercrombie & Fitch ads didn’t offend her.
“I don’t mind if they want to show naked guys because they show naked women everywhere,” said Vargas, pointing down the mall corridor to the Victoria’s Secret store. “What about the Victoria’s Secret commercials on television? That is much worse than the Abercrombie & Fitch ads.”
Nikki Hawickhorst, a senior at Kellam High School, said she considered the posters a bit risqué because of the partial nudity but that “there’s a lot of worse stuff out there.”
Abercrombie & Fitch has a penchant for raising eyebrows with its promotions. In 2003, it recalled its holiday catalog after a nationwide consumer backlash over sexually suggestive photos of scantily clad models.
“The Abercrombie & Fitch brand is provocative and undeniably sexy,” Lennox said, acknowledging some of the past reaction. “But this is ridiculous.”
Staff writer Steve Stone contributed to this story.
Carolyn Shapiro, (757) 446-2270, carolyn.shapiro@pilotonline.com
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Abercrombie & Fitch posters
Thanks to the Deputy Atty for waking up & realizing there are far worse things in life than A&F posters. As others said, sue A&F if you have a beef. & then go to Victoria Secret where I'll bet young teen boys are FAR more likely to be interested in the prurient content of posters. Most of the teens into 20's males I see can't even pull their own pants up. Where are the parents telling them if you're going out in public, pull your damn pants up & quit showing everybody your dirty underwear. I don't need to see fat teen boys leering over young girls with their pants ready to fall down. Most can't even walk properly because of the waist being around their mid-thighs. I'd much rather see a wholesome pic of boys maybe running to skinny dip in a river than some shoplifting teen who can't show respect to anybody else in society inclg their parents letting me see their dirty laundry... & what about those carrying guns? I think police need to spend time w/actual crime & parents better start telling their fat-lazy teen boys to grow up, pull their pants up & try learning to read & write & get off the streets at 3am trying to carjack someone coming home from work. Lock up the parents who c
Makes you wonder...
Deputy City Attorney Mark Stiles, should have just come out and said someone made a judgement calls that was wrong, and mistake was taken care of...end of story. But no, he has to go into some detail without admitting any mistakes.
What would have been "obscene" would have been half naked 100 lb. overweight people running through a field, you get to see those cows walking around all the time...now that is obscene.
Double standard
If the poster was of young girls with their breast hanging half way out whatever wouldn't have anything to say.
Virginia Beach Mafia Dept
so lets see....the good ol' boys lost this round to the citizens/corporate America and had to tuck their tails between their legs.....lets just see how long it takes before the Beach police attempt to extract revenge by harassing the manager in other ways....if i were the manager of A & F, i would be very careful....its a well known fact that the VBPD play a very dirty game....
pants!
Why has no one asked the most pressing question about these pictures? Which is: Why are these guys going commando?
VB Tax Dollars at Work
Okay, so how much did this arrest, seizing of property, prosecuting attorney time, "official" review and legal research and ultimate dropping of case and return of property cost the City of Virginia Beach taxpayers? Must be nice to live in a City without any real crime.
More noise from the peanut gallery.
Wow. Homophobia, prudeness, and more insults? This behavior is typical for school aged children. And I object to gratuitous sexual innuendo and risque junk masked as art because A&F's marketing is targeted towards our youth.
Thank you for such an "eloquent" but shallow post (see three posts below). I guess we've missed the point completely and rather focus on our selfish libidos and trailer park metalities.
I say again... What a sad lot you are.
Abercrombie have been
Abercrombie have been accused of kiddie porn in the past for their provocative advertising.. and these photos are a really a very thin line. They are beautiful but these bodies look really young and very close to under age.. I can just imagine some yucky pedophile really getting off on these pictures. Sad but true...I would rather protect children than see them sell t-shirts...
War on Porno!
Is VBPD firing the first salvo against the war on pornography? If so, I hope this doesn’t turn out to be another war on drugs or a war on poverty.
I think someone hit the nail on the head
Homophobes!
Continued from previous comment.
Continue to dwell far, far away.
I look forward to the day that the people of Virginia Beach can take enough responsibility for their own actions that they need not feel compelled to meddle in the affairs of others, and can allow their sensibilities to stray within a few decades of the calendar.
Sincerely,
M. Gavin Bowerman
Puritanical Morons Confirm Decision To Flee
*S*
To the Editor of the Virginian pilot,
I grew up in Virginia Beach. I lived there for twenty-five years and whomever acted as the catalyst for the Abercrombie & Fitch sign tempest in a teacup should be a shamed of themselves. It is exactly this kind of dimwitted Cultural Luddite that lent impetus to my decision to move West in 1995. I travel through the area a couple of times a year to see friends and family but sadly it seems that the racism, self-righteous prudery, and ignorance of the Beckett reality underlying the Ward Cleaver fantasy that so well encapsulates Southeastern Virginian culture are still just barely on the wane.
Add to this the little man Police Force (is VBPD still the only East Coast Metro force that allows 5'9" and under?) with no idea what the first amendment is, the ignorance that allows them to attack the proprietor of a business without an obscenity ruling in hand, and the fact that this is yet another refugee from the 1950s story on the National wire coming out of my hometown (Greekfest Riots anyone?) and it seems that Virginia Beach will continue to scramble to overcome the small minded prejudices of half a dozen decades past, and I will
Depection of sex??????
Whatever, you aren't looking at the same photo I am. I don't see any overt sex, and I find it totally twisted to think anyone would. Photography is an artowrk form, and this is a piece of artwork, weather you like it or not, and we now know all to well how you view this photo. Overt sex??? Have mercy!
A & F objections homophobic
A & F provides decent quality clothes at moderately high prices and their ads work and are mostly inuendo.
Also I think this is a tad sexist, on the part of homophobs and others. I don't see any one clamoring to ban Victoria's Secret ads from their shops or the TV and they certainly drip with sex much more than any think else I have seen lately.
P.S.
You can see more butt crack walking past a bench where someone is sitting down & their undies are hanging out! You going to call 911 on them?!?
You People are Crazyyy
If you think Abercrombie has "Inappropriate" pictures hanging in their store...you obviously have not been in a Victoria's Secret in the mall where they have models posing in bras & underwear! Let's get real people. Maybe if you were not dumping your underage kids off at the mall to let them wander around into stores in which they do not belong, then this issue would not bother you. Abercrombie is a teen & adult store they do not make clothes for young children, young children should not even be in an A&F to begin with. Take your problem up with A&F corporate, not the store manager who is just taking direction from his boss!
Abercrombie
This is America--Abercrombie would be better off displaying assault weapons.
Police and the Abercrombie and Fitch Ad
You have got to be kidding me! Once again, VA Beach can't decide whether it wants to be a beach town or a cloistered nunnery! Somebody had better rush down to the Sears store and confiscate all those catalogs, and the Virginian Pilot better throttle back on its lingerie ads or expect some serious policing! What's obscene is that the police would actually arrest somebody for these pictures. Thank goodness the DA showed some common sense. The store manager should sue for harrassment.
Whatever
Yea....whatever to whatever prude!
Intellectually challenged shoppers beware...
Wow. What brainiac attempts to compare sculpture and art with Abercrombies overt depictions of sex aimed toward teenaged shoppers?
I pity those who support this kind of public display of filth. There is a time and place for everything wouldnt you agree? Placarded on the front of a public storefront is definitely not.
What a shame to see just how many people are too eager to display their true colors. I guess moderation has given way to gratuitous self-indulgence, waste, and greed. What a sad lot you are.