Town employee calls cops on mom breastfeeding on New Jersey beach

FRANKLIN BOROUGH, New Jersey -- A mom of three is speaking out after a municipal employee called the cops because she was breastfeeding her 2-year-old daughter on a New Jersey beach.

Michelle Ayala said she started breastfeeding her daughter on the beach at a Franklin Borough pond Tuesday when a member of the borough's recreation committee working at a concession stand approached her.

"She said, 'I see what you were doing there. I would just ask that you do it somewhere else,'" Ayala told Eyewitness News.

According to New Jersey State law, breastfeeding in public is permitted, and Ayala said she told the borough employee.

The employee insisted that she cover up because children "might get offended," Ayala said, and when Ayala refused, the employee called the cops.

Ayala said the officer who arrived on scene sided with her.

"He kind of shook his head and said, 'Why would she do that? She knows this is unenforceable,'" Ayala said.

Ayala said as much as she'd like this controversy to go away, she's invited friends to a "nurse-in" demonstration in Franklin Saturday afternoon.

Eyewitness News reached out to the borough, which declined to comment.