Mannequin's wardrobe malfunction draws complaints
By SCOTT KOPERSKI / Beatrice Daily Sun
Beatrice residents who complained about a nearly naked female store mannequin prompted police to conceal the window display and stirred a debate about obscenity in the small city. (Beatrice Daily Sun)
What began as a complaint about an exposed mannequin in a store window is raising debate over what is considered obscene. Police covered the window at Hannah's Treasures for about a day last week after several people complained about the mannequin with a pair of pants around its ankles and wearing shoes but no other clothing.
City Attorney Tobias Tempelmeyer said Monday he had yet to receive all the police reports on the semi-naked mannequin. "We're not able at this point to issue a determination whether it's obscene or not," Tempelmeyer said. Police say they tried last week to contact the store's owner, Kevin Kramer, about covering up the mannequin, but were unsuccessful.
Officers then taped paper over the area of the window where the mannequin was. Kramer says the shop in Beatrice was closed because he was in the process of moving his business to Lincoln. He alleges officers violated multiple laws, including trespassing, destruction of property and littering.
When Kramer contacted officers about the issue, he said he was told to go to the police station, where he would be cited for disorderly conduct.
Kramer's lawyer, Dustin Garrison, threatened to take legal action against the city. "Nothing about a naked mannequin constitutes obscenity," Garrison said.
"I think we've all gone into a department store and seen a naked mannequin at one point in our lives. In our opinion, nothing that Mr. Kramer did was obscene or criminal in nature. Officers did conduct themselves in a criminal manner."
Tempelmeyer said he wasn't ready to say whether the display was obscene. The U.S. Supreme Court and the state have a system to determine if something is obscene. The system is broken into three categories:
- Whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards," would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest.
- Whether the work depicts or describes sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law in an offensive way.
- And whether the work lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
