Sunbathing incites fight between tenants in New York City

NEW YORK, May 12 (UPI) -- Some parents are complaining about women in bikinis sunbathing in an upscale New York City housing development's open space where kids play.

Mothers who take their children to the green space in the Stuyvesant Town residential development in Manhattan say the scanty outfits some women wear make them uncomfortable and are inappropriate around kids, and the head of the tenants' association agreed.

"This used to be a very strait-laced community," Susan Steinberg told the New York Post. "The sunbathing is tasteless, it's not very classy and it doesn't belong in a mixed residential development."

Last weekend, security guards kicked tanners out after a kids' soccer league complained, the Post reported.

But the two dozen women who were sunbathing Friday said that attitude isn't fair.

"I pay just as much rent as they do," Katie Friedman, 23, said. "Just because I don't have a child doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to be here."

For years, tenants have been aggravated by management for seeking out a younger crowd for its buildings, where a small, one-bedroom apartment goes for $3,555 per month.