Virginia Beach police seize photos from Abercrombie store

**COJOMAY** · 02-03-2008, 12:35 PM

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Police, saying they were responding to citizen complaints, carted away two large promotional photographs from the Abercrombie & Fitch store in Lynnhaven Mall on Saturday and cited the manager on obscenity charges.

Adam Bernstein, a police spokesman, said the seizure and the issuance of the summons came only after store management had not heeded warnings to remove the images.

The citation was issued under City Code Section 22.31, Bernstein said, which makes it a crime to display "obscene materials in a business that is open to juveniles." He did not say what was being done with the pictures and when the manager, whose name was not released, is scheduled to appear in court.

The manager, reached by telephone, declined to comment on the incident Saturday, saying that he was conferring with and waiting for guidance from Abercrombie corporate officials.

The mural-like black-and-white photographs were taken from the store at midafternoon.

Bernstein confirmed that one depicts three shirtless young men from the back, walking through a field. The man in the lead appears to be about to pull up his jeans, which have slipped down enough to reveal his upper buttocks.

The same image is displayed on the Abercrombie Web site.

The other image is of a woman who is topless and whose "breast is displayed with her hand covering just the nipple portion," Bernstein said. "You could still pretty much see the rest of the breast."

A&F has a history of doing this kind of stuff.
I think it was in 2003 that they had to pull their entire catalog which featured nude models and a year before that they had to pull a line of thongs that were aimed at 10 and young girls.