Facts
- Buncombe County adopted an ordinance regulating junkyards and automobile graveyards in unincorporated areas, requiring them to be screened from view from public roads and residential areas (typically by fencing or comparable enclosure).
- Mack H. Jones operated a junkyard/automobile graveyard without the required screening.
- The State charged Jones criminally for violating the ordinance.
- Jones moved to quash the warrant, arguing (1) the ordinance exceeded the county’s police power because it was based on aesthetics alone and (2) the ordinance was unconstitutionally vague.
- The district court granted the motion to quash; the Court of Appeals reversed and remanded; the Supreme Court of North Carolina granted discretionary review.
Issues
- Whether a county ordinance requiring junkyards to be screened from view violates substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment and the North Carolina Constitution’s “law of the land” clause because it is an exercise of police power for aesthetic reasons alone.
- Whether the ordinance is unconstitutionally vague in violation of due process.
Decision
- The Supreme Court of North Carolina affirmed the Court of Appeals and upheld the ordinance.
- The Court held the screening requirement bore a real and substantial relation to the general welfare and therefore did not violate federal due process or the state “law of the land” clause.
- The Court held the ordinance was not void for vagueness because it provided fair notice of what was required and sufficient standards to guide enforcement.
Legal Principles
- A police-power regulation satisfies substantive due process if it bears a real and substantial relation to legitimate public purposes within the general welfare.
- Aesthetic considerations may be a legitimate component of the police power when reasonably connected to broader welfare interests (including property values, orderly development, and prevention of visual blight).
- A criminal ordinance is void for vagueness only if it fails to provide fair notice to ordinary persons of the required or prohibited conduct or lacks sufficient standards to prevent arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.
- Terms such as “screened from view,” when used in land-use regulation and read in light of the ordinance’s purpose and context, can provide adequate notice and enforceable standards despite potential borderline applications.
Conclusion
The court sustained Buncombe County’s junkyard-screening ordinance, concluding that visual-screening requirements may rest on aesthetic concerns tied to the general welfare and that the ordinance’s language gave adequate notice and enforceable guidance, defeating a vagueness challenge.