## Facts

- Miami Beach generally prohibited vending from streets and sidewalks in its commercial district, including Ocean Drive in the historic Art Deco area.
- The city allowed an exception for full-service restaurants to place outdoor tables, primarily on the west side of Ocean Drive where pedestrian activity was heaviest.
- In 1997, the city enacted a Nonprofit Vending and Distribution Ordinance that created a limited exception for nonprofit organizations to use portable tables for solicitation and vending at five designated locations on the east side of Ocean Drive.
- One World One Family Now and related plaintiffs used tables on public walkways to help sell message-bearing T-shirts connected to their religious and ideological missions.
- Plaintiffs sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging the ordinance violated the First Amendment by restricting their table-based sales and by treating restaurant tables differently from nonprofit tables.

## Issues

1. Whether restricting nonprofit vending tables to specified locations on Ocean Drive was a content-neutral time, place, and manner regulation in a traditional public forum.
2. Whether the ordinance was narrowly tailored to serve significant governmental interests, including pedestrian safety, traffic flow, and preservation of historic aesthetics.
3. Whether the ordinance left open ample alternative channels for plaintiffs’ protected expression.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit affirmed judgment for the city.
- The court treated Ocean Drive sidewalks as a traditional public forum and accepted that selling message-bearing T-shirts implicated protected expression.
- The ordinance was content neutral because it regulated table placement and use for stated purposes of traffic management and aesthetics, without regard to message or viewpoint.
- The city’s interests in pedestrian safety, traffic flow, and preserving the Art Deco district’s historic character were significant.
- The ordinance was narrowly tailored because it did not prohibit expression or all table use; it created a limited exception to an existing general ban and did not burden substantially more speech than necessary.
- Ample alternatives remained, including leafletting, solicitation, and distribution without tables, and table use at the designated east-side locations.

## Legal Principles

- In a traditional public forum, the government may impose content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions if they are narrowly tailored to serve significant governmental interests and leave open ample alternative channels of communication.
- Content neutrality turns on whether the regulation is justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech and is not aimed at suppressing a particular message or viewpoint.
- Narrow tailoring does not require the least restrictive means; the regulation must not burden substantially more speech than necessary to further the government’s significant interests.
- The First Amendment does not guarantee access to a speaker’s preferred location or method when adequate alternative avenues for expression remain available.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Miami Beach’s limitation of nonprofit vending tables to five designated east-side locations on Ocean Drive as a valid content-neutral time, place, and manner restriction serving significant safety and aesthetic interests while leaving adequate alternative means for expressive activity.


One World One Family Now v. City of Miami Beach, 175 F.3d 1282 (11th Cir. 1999)