## Facts

- Massachusetts created Boston’s Historic Beacon Hill District and authorized the Beacon Hill Architectural Commission to preserve the district’s historic and aesthetic character.
- In 1991, the Commission adopted a Street Furniture Guideline that effectively banned private newspaper distribution boxes (newsracks) from public streets and sidewalks in the district, while allowing certain public-safety and government-related installations.
- Newspaper publishers had operated dozens of newsracks in the district and alleged the ban significantly burdened efficient and economical single-copy distribution.
- The publishers challenged the guideline in federal court, asserting both lack of state-law authority and violation of the First Amendment.
- After the federal appellate court sought state-law clarification, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court concluded the Commission had statutory authority to regulate and even categorically ban entire classes of structures such as newsracks within its jurisdiction.

## Issues

1. Whether a categorical ban on private newsracks on streets and sidewalks in a historic district violates the First Amendment rights of newspaper publishers.
2. Whether the ban is a content-neutral time, place, and manner restriction in a traditional public forum that is narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest and leaves open ample alternative channels of communication.
3. Whether the guideline is facially invalid as overbroad or functions as an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech.

## Decision

- The First Circuit reversed the district court’s First Amendment ruling and upheld the guideline.
- The court held the ban is content-neutral because it applies without regard to the content of newspapers and serves historic and aesthetic preservation, not suppression of speech.
- Treating streets and sidewalks as a traditional public forum, the court applied time, place, and manner scrutiny and found a significant governmental interest in protecting the district’s historic and architectural integrity.
- The court concluded the categorical ban was narrowly tailored even though it was not the least restrictive means, reasoning that the preservation interest would be achieved less effectively without the ban.
- The court found ample alternative channels remained available, including retail outlets, home delivery, mail delivery, and street vendors; the First Amendment does not require the most convenient or cost-effective distribution method.
- The court rejected claims of unconstitutional prior restraint and substantial overbreadth, finding no substantial risk that the guideline would compromise First Amendment protections in a large number of applications.

## Legal Principles

- Streets and sidewalks are traditional public forums; content-neutral regulations there are valid if narrowly tailored to a significant governmental interest and leaving open ample alternative channels for communication.
- A regulation is content-neutral when it draws no distinctions based on message content and is justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech.
- Narrow tailoring in the time, place, and manner context does not require the least restrictive alternative; it is sufficient if the regulation materially advances the governmental interest and the interest would be achieved less effectively absent the regulation.
- The First Amendment does not guarantee speakers the most convenient or least expensive means of distributing protected expression.
- A facial overbreadth challenge requires a substantial showing that the regulation restricts a significant amount of protected speech relative to its legitimate sweep; facial invalidation is disfavored absent that showing.

## Conclusion

The court upheld the historic-district newsrack ban as a content-neutral time, place, and manner restriction that reasonably furthered historic preservation and aesthetics while leaving newspaper publishers adequate alternative means to distribute their publications.


Globe Newspaper Co. v. Beacon Hill Architectural Comm'n, 100 F.3d 175 (1st Cir. 1996)