Topless rally returns to downtown Asheville on Sunday

ASHEVILLE – A controversial annual topless rally in the downtown is returning for a fifth time on Sunday.

The Go Topless rally is set for 1-3 p.m. Sunday at Pritchard Park in the heart of the downtown retail and dining scene, according to organizers.

The Asheville rally is organized by out-of-state activists of GoTopless.org. It is among dozens of such events planned Sunday in cities across the U.S. and around the world on Go Topless Day, which is held annually on the Sunday that falls closest to Aug. 26, which is Women’s Equality Day.

Organizers say the point of the rallies is to raise awareness that laws and social stigmas against women baring their breasts in public are unfair.

The local rallies have seen a decline in the number of participants and spectators. The first event in 2011 drew an estimated 2,000 people and featured several dozen topless women. The subsequent events drew several hundred people, most of them male spectators with cameras, with about a dozen women baring their breasts.

Asheville City Council members have researched ways to stop the annual August rallies, but officials say the board’s hands are tied because state law allows toplessness. In a 1970 court case, the N.C. Court of Appeals ruled that female breasts were not “private parts” and therefore could not be considered indecent.