Facts
- Los Angeles commissioned a 1977 study reporting that neighborhoods with higher concentrations of adult entertainment businesses experienced increased crime.
- In 1978, the City enacted a zoning ordinance restricting adult businesses from locating within 1,000 feet of each other and within 500 feet of schools, parks, or religious institutions.
- The City concluded that the spacing rules still permitted clustering by allowing multiple adult businesses to operate within a single building.
- In 1983, Los Angeles amended its ordinance to prohibit more than one adult entertainment business in the same building.
- Alameda Books, Inc. and Highland Books, Inc. operated both an adult bookstore and adult video arcade under one roof and sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging a facial First Amendment violation.
Issues
- Whether the ordinance is properly treated as a content-neutral time, place, and manner regulation aimed at secondary effects rather than speech content.
- Whether Los Angeles could reasonably rely on its earlier study to justify prohibiting multiple adult businesses in a single building.
- What evidentiary showing and burden allocation apply when evaluating secondary-effects zoning regulations at the summary-judgment stage.
Decision
- The Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit and remanded.
- A plurality concluded the ordinance was aimed at secondary effects (crime) and therefore subject to intermediate scrutiny under the secondary-effects doctrine.
- The plurality held that the City could reasonably infer from the 1977 study linking crime to concentrations of adult businesses that multiple adult uses in one building function as a concentration likely to produce similar effects.
- The Court articulated a burden-shifting approach: the City must offer evidence reasonably believed relevant that fairly supports its rationale; challengers may cast direct doubt; if they do, the City must supplement with additional evidence.
- Justice Kennedy concurred in the judgment, emphasizing that the regulation must target secondary effects and not operate as a pretext to suppress the quantity of protected adult expression.
- The Court held the City’s showing was sufficient to defeat summary judgment for the challengers on the record presented.
Legal Principles
- Zoning regulations of adult businesses aimed at combating crime and other secondary effects are generally evaluated as content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions under intermediate scrutiny.
- A municipality may rely on evidence it reasonably believes relevant to secondary effects; it need not conduct new studies each time it modifies its regulatory approach.
- Evidence need not be conclusive; it must fairly support the municipality’s rationale, including reasonable inferences drawn from existing studies.
- In litigation challenging a secondary-effects ordinance, challengers can attempt to defeat the municipality’s justification by casting direct doubt on the evidentiary basis; if successful, the municipality must produce additional supporting evidence.
- A secondary-effects regulation is constitutionally suspect if it functions as a disguised effort to suppress protected speech rather than to address the asserted secondary effects.
Conclusion
The Court held that Los Angeles could rely on its earlier study and reasonable inferences about “concentration” to justify a ban on multiple adult businesses in a single building, and it remanded for further proceedings under a framework that gives municipalities leeway to regulate adult businesses for secondary effects while permitting challengers to rebut the evidentiary basis.