A lawsuit has been started against the City of Seattle to shut down Denny Blaine Park. The justification behind this lawsuit is an increase in sexual activity, violent crime, illegal drug use, amongst other things. 

Judge Samuel Chung, presiding over this case, has asserted in an initial hearing that public nudity "as constituted at Denny Blaine Park" constitutes a nuisance. The court has ordered the City of Seattle provide an abatement plan to eliminate all listed nuisance at the park. This means the City may have to provide a plan to alter conduct at the park: potentially eliminating nudity and/or finding a way to change its current form at the park to meaningfully separate it from other conduct.

Denny Blaine Park has been used by the LGBTQ+ community and other Seattle residents as a clothing optional park for over 50 years. For many in the LGBTQ+ community, this park acts as a safe space, a third place, and a communal gathering area. Eliminating nudity from Denny Blaine Park would erase a safe so many people use to gather, express themselves, affirm their gender identity, and much more.

After a plan to build a children's playground was squashed in 2023, a group of passionate beach goers founded the Friends of Denny Blaine (FODB). This group has been actively working with the Seattle Parks Foundation in efforts to improve the park, including adding additional trash cans, cleaning invasive thorn bushes, adding hand rails to the stone stairs, and coordinating with Park Rangers on a plan to handle acts of public indecency. More information can be found on the FODB Instagram.

Denny Blaine Park has a strong history of community policing. The denizens of DBP have little tolerance for all of the above listed nuisances, and will actively intervene anytime it is spotted. The majority of these incidents happen off hours, but have been unfairly attributed to users of the beach. 

Despite the effort and improvements that have gone into the park by park goers and the FODB, park goers are still subject to routine harassment by residents of the neighborhood of Denny Blaine. There are numerous undocumented incidents of filming, loitering, and stalking. The Seattle Police Department (SPD) has been historically weaponized against denizens of the beach. More recently, a transgender woman was trespassed at DBP simply for being there (the citation has since been dropped).

A community member charted the number of phone calls related to DPB between 2010 and 2023. What this chart shows is a noticeable spike in activity in 2020 (which can be attributed to communal policing stopping due to the pandemic). Following that, all crimes barring lewd activity have fallen substantially, with most reaching the lowest levels since 2010.

Denny Blaine Park acts as a vital resource for the LGBTQ+ community, and the goal of this petition is to help protect that resource. By signing, you are showing your support for the Park as a place to be nude. We thank you for your support, and hope to see you at the beach!