This company in Vermont decided to make snowboarding awesome by putting old Playmate photos on snowboards.

Too bad some people who should just go away are ruining things.

Yet the company has found itself at the center of a grow ing controversy in the liberal state, with residents, students, and politicians debating free speech and sexism on the ski slopes. The Burlington City Council discussed asking Burton to withdraw the boards, and the Girl Scout Council of Vermont is considering taking concerns to lawmakers next month.

The outcry hasn't made a dent in sales of the new lines, Burton cofounder Jake Carpenter told the Burlington newspaper Seven Days in November. The Playboy line, called Love, and a second line called Primo, which depicts mutilated hands, have "completely oversold by virtue of this exposure," he said.

The debate has split Vermonters along a number of lines. There are parents who don't want their children to encounter the images at the state's family-friendly slopes; young snowboarders who cite right to free speech in buying the boards; and politicians who fear the criticism might drive Burton, one of the city's biggest employers with more than 500 Vermont workers, to move its headquarters elsewhere.

Zarrillo's boss, Mark Redmond, said he pulled his nonprofit, Spectrum Youth & Family Services, from a Burton program that donates snowboards to needy children after learning about the Playboy line and Primo, which depicts fingers mutilated by razors, a dog's teeth, and scissors. Because objectification of women increases the chance men will become abusive, he said, the boards are an important issue for both sexes.

"Once you bring something like that to the public domain, it's a public issue," said Redmond, who would like Burton to pull the unsold Love and Primo boards from stores. "Why is it OK for younger children to see it on the slopes or in the lift line?"

Carmel Quinn, who directs the Girl Scout Council of Vermont teen program, said she is talking to the group's teenage members about bringing the issue to lawmakers when the Vermont legislative session resumes this month

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