## Facts

- PA Northwestern Distributors, Inc. opened an adult bookstore in Moon Township, Pennsylvania after obtaining required permits.
- Days later, the Township publicly noticed and then enacted a zoning amendment regulating “adult commercial enterprises.”
- The ordinance imposed location and spacing restrictions and included a 90-day “amortization” clause requiring nonconforming adult businesses to come into compliance within 90 days of the ordinance’s effective date.
- The bookstore qualified as an “adult commercial enterprise” but could not meet the ordinance’s location requirements due to proximity to a school, a church, and residential areas and because it was not in a permitted district.
- The zoning officer notified the company that it must comply within 90 days, effectively requiring closure or relocation.

## Issues

1. Whether a zoning ordinance may require termination of a lawful pre-existing nonconforming use within a fixed amortization period without paying just compensation under the Pennsylvania Constitution.
2. Whether a lawful pre-existing nonconforming use is a vested property right that cannot be extinguished by amortization absent nuisance, abandonment, or condemnation.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reversed the Commonwealth Court.
- The Court held the amortization provision unconstitutional as applied to a lawful pre-existing nonconforming use.
- The Court ruled that forcing discontinuance of such a use after a set period is confiscatory and amounts to a taking without just compensation.
- A concurrence agreed the ordinance was unconstitutional as applied but would have evaluated amortization under a reasonableness test and found the 90-day period unreasonable.

## Legal Principles

- A lawfully established pre-existing nonconforming use is a vested property right protected by the Pennsylvania Constitution.
- Government may regulate land use prospectively, but it may not extinguish a vested nonconforming use solely through an amortization deadline without paying just compensation.
- A lawful nonconforming use may be ended only if it constitutes a nuisance, is abandoned, or is acquired through eminent domain with compensation.
- Under the majority rule, amortization provisions that compel termination of lawful nonconforming uses are per se unconstitutional takings in Pennsylvania.

## Conclusion

The court invalidated a 90-day amortization scheme that required an existing lawful adult bookstore to cease operations or relocate, holding that municipalities cannot eliminate vested nonconforming uses through time-limited phase-out requirements without compensation.


PA Nw. Distribs., Inc. v. Zoning Hearing Bd. of Twp. of Moon, 584 A.2d 1372 (Pa. 1991)