## Facts

- During the AIDS epidemic, New York City sought to stop the spread of a lethal communicable disease associated with certain high-risk sexual practices.
- New York State amended its sanitary code to authorize local health authorities to close facilities “in which high risk sexual activity takes place.”
- New Saint Mark’s Baths operated as a commercial bathhouse where patrons met and engaged in sexual activity.
- Health inspectors observed repeated “high risk sexual activity” at the premises, including unprotected anal intercourse and other conduct considered high risk for AIDS transmission at the time.
- The City sued to enjoin and close the premises as a public nuisance under the New York City Administrative Code and New York Penal Law, relying in part on the sanitary code amendment.
- The bathhouse and patron-intervenors argued that closure would violate constitutional rights to sexual privacy and freedom of association; the bathhouse also pointed to risk-reduction steps such as distributing AIDS information and condoms.

## Issues

1. Whether the City could enjoin and close the bathhouse as a public nuisance under applicable nuisance provisions and public-health authority because high-risk sexual activity occurred there.
2. Whether closing the bathhouse violated constitutional protections for privacy and freedom of association, and, if implicated, whether those interests outweighed the government’s public-health justification.

## Decision

- The court granted intervention motions by state and patron parties.
- The court granted the City’s request for injunctive relief and ordered closure of New Saint Mark’s Baths as a public nuisance.
- The court denied defendants’ cross-motion to dismiss.
- The court concluded that the public-health danger was concrete and substantial, and that the injunction was a permissible exercise of governmental authority.

## Legal Principles

- Government may use nuisance-abatement and public-health powers to restrain conduct and close premises when the operation of a facility materially endangers public health.
- Courts generally accord substantial deference to health measures supported by evidence of a serious communicable-disease threat.
- Constitutional privacy protections do not create a right to engage in anonymous, multi-partner sexual conduct in a commercial facility open to the public or a broad membership.
- Associational rights protect expressive and certain intimate associations, but do not extend to association primarily for facilitating illegal or harmful conduct; regulation aimed at hazardous conduct may be upheld when justified by compelling public-health interests.
- Voluntary mitigation measures by an operator (e.g., education and prophylactics) do not bar closure where high-risk conduct persists and the record supports that lesser measures are inadequate.

## Conclusion

The court held that New York City could close the bathhouse as a public nuisance based on observed high-risk sexual activity linked to the spread of AIDS, and it rejected privacy and association objections because the asserted interests did not protect the conduct in a commercial bathhouse setting and, in any event, were outweighed by the government’s public-health interest.


City of New York v. New Saint Mark’s Baths, 130 Misc. 2d 911 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1986)