Fire Island’s top park ranger didn’t want nudity-prohibition laws enforced “against his friends” in gay enclaves there, according to a lawsuit.
Alexcy Romero, superintendent of Fire Island for the US National Parks Service, treated the beach community “as his personal fiefdom, over which he is free to impose his will without restraint,” lifelong resident Samuel Wood alleged.
Romero allegedly instructed longtime former Chief Ranger John Stewart “not to enforce New York State public nudity laws” in Fire Island Pines, Carrington Tract and Cherry Grove, because the superintendent “had friends who spent time in these areas and he did not want New York’s public nudity laws enforced against his friends,” Wood claimed in a Brooklyn Federal Court complaint.
Stewart refused the 2019 directive and was later forced out, prompting residents like Wood to launch a fundraiser — to which Wood donated more than $2,000, landing him in Romero’s “crosshairs,” he said in court papers.
Wood, who owns a construction company, claims Romero suspended his carting license for a month in February for three vehicle violations he’d received two years earlier.
He’s suing Romero and the National Park Service to vacate the suspension and is seeking unspecified damages.
The National Parks Service declined comment on the litigation.
