Respondents, two adult establishments that each operated an adult bookstore and an adult video arcade in the same building, filed a suit under Rev. Pp.
Indeed, the very absence of secondary effects might increase the audience for the speech; perhaps for every two people who are discouraged by the inconvenience of two-stop shopping, another two are encouraged by hospitable surroundings. (c) The necessary rationale for applying intermediate scrutiny is the promise that zoning ordinances like the one at issue may reduce the costs of secondary effects without substantially reducing speech. The city found no certain correlation between the location of those establishments and depressed property values, but it did find some correlation between areas of higher concentrations of such business and higher crime rates. Los Angeles Municipal Code §12.70(C) (1978). § 1979, * In 1977, the city of Los Angeles conducted a comprehensive study of adult establishments and concluded that concentrations of adult businesses are associated with higher rates of prostitution, robbery, assaults, and thefts in surrounding communities. The ordinance at issue in this case is not limited to expressive activities. Los Angeles Municipal Code § 12.70(C) (1978). Additionally, both provide booths where patrons can view videocassettes for a fee. A city may not assert that it will reduce secondary effects by reducing speech in the same proportion. Increased crime, like prostitution and muggings, and declining property values in areas surrounding adult businesses, are all readily observable, often to the untrained eye and certainly to the police officer and urban planner. These secondary consequences are not always immune from regulation by zoning laws even though they are produced by speech.Municipal governments know that high concentrations of adult businesses can damage the value and the integrity of a neighborhood. In the language of our The Court appeared to recognize, however, that the designation was something of a fiction, which, perhaps, is why it kept the phrase in quotes. It might, for example, single out slaughterhouses for specific zoning treatment, restricting them to a particularly remote part of town. First, the Court of Appeals found that the Los Angeles ordinance was not a complete ban on adult entertainment establishments, but rather a sort of adult zoning regulation, which The central component of the 1977 study is a report on city crime patterns provided by the Los Angeles Police Department. No. There are no physical distinctions between the different operations within each establishment and each establishment has only one entrance. While the city certainly bears the burden of providing evidence that supports a link between concentrations of adult operations and asserted secondary effects, it does not bear the burden of providing evidence that rules out every theory for the link between concentrations of adult establishments that is inconsistent with its own.The error that the Court of Appeals made is that it required the city to prove that its theory about a concentration of adult operations attracting crowds of customers, much like a minimall or department store does, is a necessary consequence of the 1977 study. App. Brief for Petitioner 28.
Souter, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Stevens and Ginsburg, JJ., joined, and in which Breyer, J., joined as to Part II.No. See § 12.02 ("The purpose of this article is to consolidate and coordinate all existing zoning regulations and provisions into one comprehensive zoning plan ... in order to encourage the most appropriate use of land ... and to promote the health, safety, and the general welfare ..."). Each establishment occupies less than 3,000 square feet. § 12.70(B)(2)(a). Because the ordinance's method of calculating distances created a loophole permitting the concentration of multiple adult enterprises in a single structure, the city later amended the ordinance to prohibit "more than one adult entertainment business in the same building."
A city may not, for example, impose a content-based fee or tax. These primary effects signify the power and the necessity of free speech. The city's study shows a correlation between the concentration of adult establishments and crime. 00799. The city's premise cannot be the latter. Additionally, both … The city no longer accepts businesses as their owners choose to conduct them within their own four walls, but bars a video arcade in a bookstore, a combination shown by the record to be commercially natural, if not universal. See, In this case the proposition to be shown is supported by a single study and common experience. P. 10. All this further suggests that the ordinance is more in the nature of a typical land-use restriction and less in the nature of a law suppressing speech.For these reasons, the ordinance is not so suspect that we must employ the usual rigorous analysis that content-based laws demand in other instances. Second, how much evidence is required to support the proposition? Limiting such effects qualifies as a substantial governmental interest, and an ordinance has been said to survive if it is shown to serve such ends without unreasonably limiting alternatives Regulation of commercial speech, which is like secondary-effects zoning in being subject to an intermediate level of Finally, the city does not assert an interest in curbing any secondary effects within the combined bookstore-arcades. It can change minds.