Yoga instructor told his shorts are too short

A taste for short shorts has landed a Thompson Rivers University lecturer in hot water with Kamloops City officials, who say his outfits are too revealing for the city's largest recreational complex.

Mohd Abdullah, a pilates and yoga instructor who also teaches computer science at TRU, says he's been warned twice by officials at the Tournament Capital Centre that the shorts he wears when working out there are too short.

But the 48-year-old has refused to heed the warnings -- and says he'd rather rescind his membership at the centre than toss out the six to eight pairs of short shorts he owns, one of them purchased from a Montreal Wal-Mart in 1997 for $5.



"I think it is discriminating and at the same time, I think it is a double standard," he said. "Here you have women that are wearing shorts that are half my size and with, excuse my lingo, the boobs half falling [out] -- and that's acceptable."

Clint Andersen, sport development supervisor with the City of Kamloops, said there have been a series of attire-related complaints lodged about Abdullah since he began working out a year ago. They have centered on the length of Abdullah's shorts, as well as their "looseness" and revealing nature, he said.

Meanwhile Abdullah, who said he's getting moral support from his wife and colleagues at the university, is prepared to take his shorts elsewhere if necessary. "I'm not going to change my style, not when I'm half a century old," he said. "I'm just going to keep wearing what I wear."