City bans bra-hanging breast cancer event

Officials in a Georgia city have banned the hanging of bras across major intersections to draw attention to Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Savannah city officials said they decided not to allow the "Bras Across Broughton" event, created by Clear Channel Communications, because they believe stringing bras across the four Broughton Street intersections would be in poor taste, the Savannah Morning News reported Tuesday. "We have always closely scrutinized for appropriateness any private use of our public spaces," City Manager Rochelle Small-Toney wrote in a memo to City Council members last week. "In this case, we weighed the goal of increased breast cancer awareness with the appropriateness of hanging underwear across one of our main streets." The event was to be aimed at raising awareness of breast cancer, with O.C. Welch Ford Lincoln pledging to donate $1 per bra up to $5,000 to breast cancer charities. Caroline Keller, president of the board of the Coastal Georgia Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, has written a letter to the city asking for the decision to be reversed. "Similar campaigns have been executed successfully and tastefully in other cities in the Southeast such as Columbia and Greenville, S.C., and Richmond, Va., and are repeated each year as annual events," Keller wrote.