ST. ALBANS, Vt. -
"I just don't want it for anyone, especially my daughter or any female," Christa Gibson said.
Gibson couldn't believe her eyes when photos of her 18-year-old daughter in a wet T-shirt contest surfaced.
"I was horrified as a mother and I wanted to bawl," Gibson said. "I'm very disgusted with the whole situation."
The dance floor at Bayside Pavilion in St. Albans is empty midweek, with dining tables set up instead. But the restaurant gets busy and becomes more of a bar on weekend nights, holding occasional night club contests. This recent one raised blood pressure and eyebrows.
"When people are supposedly taking their clothes off, it's going to get rowdy," Gibson said.
Gibson and others, particularly Bayside's neighbors, are calling for changes to town liquor licenses in the wake of the wet T-shirt contest. They want to see an end to 18 and over nights in town and ordinances in place to ban what they call immoral and inappropriate contests that tarnish the town's image.
Business owner Chuck Lowe did not want to talk about what he calls false allegations and outright lies on camera. He did say that the wet T-shirt contest was harmless fun. No laws were broken and no one was nude.
Despite allegations of naked patrons, WCAX News found no proof. None of the photos we obtained show any nudity. And even the town says that appears to be an exaggeration.
"No there aren't any laws broken," St. Albans Town Manager Gerry Myers said.
Myers says he and the select board hope to meet with business owners to try to find a solution.
"I think he does a good job in a very risky environment. Maybe there's middle ground we can get to," Myers said. "We don't want to put the place out of business. This is this person's business plan. You may not agree with it, I may not agree with it, and others may not. But if they're not doing anything illegal, it makes it more difficult to change that behavior, if in fact that's the goal, to change what's going on there."
Bayside's owners tell us no more wet T-shirt contests are on tap due to the controversy. But the bar hopes to continue with its 18 and over nights.
Christa Gibson says she'll continue to fight.
"I definitely want provisions on that," she said.
Men also participated in the wet T-shirt competition. It was organized and run by a female employee.
