court cathy park for the city of new york the challenge for instructions present no first amendment violation here who go agrees that central hudsons intermediate scrutiny toughest is the applicable standard here and the rules easily passed that test as a district court correctly found the city has a substantial interest in shielding passengers from intrusive advertising and interests that is particularly acute in the context here where you're talking about captive audiences who don't have any choice or volition in the matter in choosing to have the message the rust upon them there's also as clear about something at the outset if you can help me with this i understand you do i understand you correctly at least in a footnote footnote for the blue brief as a challenge that encompasses not only commercial speech but also noncommercial speech that that would be a time a valid time place manner is struction but this case has always been litigated as a commercial speech case both parties agree on that point and to and to that extent it's central hudson's standard that applies and so it's sort of the question is this a valid time place and manner restriction your answer is regulating this kind of speech there it's narrowly tailored and it's also there are alternative open and channels of of communication available to advertisers they wouldn't be just limited in this particular context of of taxicabs or for hire vehicles but if that answers your honour's question i'm turning back to what's really the core of this case which is commercial speech the rules not only not only has the city set forth a substantial interest in protecting pass and promoting passenger comfort but there's also a reasonable fit between the challenge restrictions and the city's goal of of addressing this harm and i ask you no other i understand the commission two thousand and eighteen  streets not generally not having the monitors well your honor it's the monitor aspect of the feature is it isn't mandated still remains to be seen what  understanding is that there is now technology available that doesn't require a monitor but still would allow for the other features of the old technology system that would allow for that but the idea of the monitor was to offset exactly what has happened what percentage of taxicab drivers has not opted to put in this system that is certainly something that i can find out from the commission and and let you know they still can put in that system and it would still help them offset the cost that's right that adam is words right that option is still available for a taxicab drivers it's just no longer mandatory it's not no longer a mandatory requirement to install these monitors with taxi in the reason why the commission has has gone this route is because after allowing for the exception to offset costs there's been numerous complaints not only from  passengers about the intrusive nature of taxi t v but also taxi drivers have apparently have been according to media reports have been allayed it to find that this is no longer a mandatory option so  passengers don't want taxi t v and so they've been opting for other modes of transportation that don't have this requirement and so that's why it wouldn't it would be relevant here and that owners of taxi cabs and some advertisers that want this some advertisers who would like to advertise both in taxi cabs and maybe the cars that we're talking about here today and there are some  owners of cars that would like to make some revenue from from that so why doesn't the fact that the city has permitted this to happen with taxi cab sort of undercut its argument that it's not happened or it's very important could be other competing interests that the city or government could consider that might outweigh the asserted interest it's not it's not required to consider the it's extatic interest in a vacuum compared to other interests and here where initially when in two thousand and five the city decided to make this exception it made a judgment that that having allowing taxi t v in the taxi cab contacts as a trade off for the other conveniences to passengers it would provide including credit card payment protections against fraud more accurate fares that that would be justified by those competing interests and promote the overall  passenger comfort that's a different that's different in that in the in the for hire vehicle context where you already have many of these conveniences and you don't need a technology that was going to be something along the lines of because it's these expenses and we're trying to help out the cab the medallion owners by saying well you can pay for the expense that we're requiring by allowing advertising in your cab which underwrites at least part of the cost of this is i thought that was the principal reason for iraq it is and the reason why we have that technology in the first place is because it there conveniences i would be given to passengers that technology keeps track of trip data it keeps track of fares it allows for credit card payment these are features that don't exist in the for hire vehicle contacts so and it's in the so this technology is not mandated in the for hire vehicle context and there's no need to for to provide for a way to offset those costs in in that qantas and this is very i would like to just like in this case to the met in the metro media case where the supreme court set for them in this apology to allow for the exception of onsite commercial advertising that it could that a city could find that its commercial interests in allowing for that exception could out way the other municipal interests in that interest in that particular context and that it's ok to make that distinction that's something that the court will accept because there are there is deference according to the commission in making these kinds of judgments  and so that is why even with this exception it doesn't undercut the city's overall goal of of remoting of dealing with the problem of intrusive advertising it still regulate certain messages these are rules that apply even handedly the distinction between taxicabs and for hire vehicles it's a content neutral distinction  and this case is really just far afield from the kind of circumstances that were present in the discovery network case where in that case the regulation only there was such a material to carry and certainly there is there's a substantial portion of the problem that's going to be addressed by the restrictions now yes they're like one third as of the two thousand and sixteen numbers one third of ridership was through for higher vehicles and those numbers are continually continuing to rise and have recently recently for higher vehicle ridership has actually overtaken taxi summer taxi t v is no longer even a requirement in taxicabs two so the commission is you know recognises this is an intrusive it's a harm that it wants to address they created a limited exception  in the interest of giving recognising it as perhaps a acceptable trade off for some of the other conveniences that that the technology system would provide but now has decided to to morning rollers when i was wrong may please the court before the court today is not a content neutral regulation nor is it a time place and manner regulation  time place and manner of closely the prohibition restricts suppresses commercial speech when government suppresses commercial speech by its very nature it's making a judgment about the content or the message that's being conveyed if the rules apply to noncommercial and commercial ads and it and various points the city seems to suggest that argument  why isn't this an time place and manner regulation because the rule in this case based on the on the record pertains to advertising a request was made to install a tablet that convey a an advertising message and the t l c said you can't do it it's prohibited it's permitted in taxis but it's not permitted in for hire vehicles it's never been questioned at the district court level nor do i think those that appear in the record anywhere that we're dealing with something other than a content based restriction on commercial speech and for that reason the t l c s burden as the court well knows is a very heavy  burden there's a presumption of invalidity that attaches to what the t l c has done here one thing i'm not sure of and please help me understand is what what's the standard at times it seems the central hudson standard the question is what exactly is the central hudson standard today based on the recent number of supreme court decisions since the one nine hundred ninety five what is clear is that commercial speech is not low level speech used to be years ago but what it isn't anymore so the intermediate scrutiny standard which is somewhere between rational basis review and strict scrutiny the intermediate scrutiny standard over time as articulated in central hutson has gotten bumped up to the brink of strict scrutiny but the supreme court although several of the justices have said they think that commercial speech restrictions should be subjected to strict scrutiny they haven't held back yet so we has failed to satisfy the relevant central hudson standards but you could you take me to the second prime if central hartson i mean your argument as i understand it is that  it doesn't survive the the ban doesn't survive because it was designed to suppress speech that some people don't like that side of it but at this at this stage of of advertising the this and we give we give this city in the administration of its responsibilities wide berth i agree with that that there is deference to the cit asserted the statement of what is a substantial interest they've asserted their substantial interest as being the statics i suggest to the court that this is a suppression of commercial speech masquerading as a because when you get to the heart of it and you look to the primary reason why the t l c has imposed this restriction it's because the t l c has determined not the passengers but the t l c has determined that they think th type of speech is uniquely annoying commercial speech coding for the t l c is uniquely annoying and government is then saying we are going to decide what information the passengers in the vehicles can and cannot receive  and that's and there for the first amendment we've got the service that they matter well the surveys go both ways there are surveys that suggest that people writing in taxis and in for higher vehicles actually enjoy receiving commercial the point here is that there's a simple way to decide this case and i think that this record got it right in this regard is that the t l c has an obligation to show that it's restriction against commercial speech is narrowly drawn that it's no more extensive than necessary to achieve its proport had substantial interest even if we can see for sake of argument that the t l c has a substantial interest it's not furthered by a narrowly drawn prohibition against commercial speech so why is it not narrowly drawn it's not narrowly drawn because there are less restrictive ways for the t l c to accomplish its governmental purpose other than by suppressing commercial speech what are those ways while one is the installation of an on off mute or volume control button that to me your honour's is the simply want to button but where we're receptive number and the record shows that we would in fact if if the court and i think this is on page four zero four of the appendix there there is a t l c regulation that specifies what taxi t v s need to have built into it one of which is an on off or mute button or volume control button we would have no objection to that because that would then leave the decision as to whether  not the message should be received in the hands of the passenger not in the hands of government that you would want to have a button or a mute button but you have a volume button which would take it down to very low levels that is not what you saw in your well that may be true but we're going to give you a volume control that can take it down to zero i don't that that that's not my understanding of the record and if it is your honor i don't think that's an accurate statement of view goes position if the t l c were to mandate  for for higher vehicles what it mandates for taxis which is an on off mute volume control button as well as a placement and manner specification requirements we would certainly adhere to that so long as it's not censoring the message that's the point and that's the problem with the t l c s you know blunt instrument here where it is across the board blocking out all commercial messages in some vehicles namely vehicles but not in taxis and it makes no sense it undercuts why doesn't it thinking about it stepping back and thinking about it from the city's point of view as an administration issue  experience from its you know its perspective you may disagree disagree as to what constitutes pleasant or not and so it has this this band but at the same time it's got some competing interests essentially in terms of ensuring that there are these devices that make it easier to monitor what's going on in cabs and so it permits essentially this exception to the ban why isn't the at your adversary correct that just as an administrative matter you can't do achieve everything at once because that and that it is it makes sense from a rational point of view to have a policy that essentially phases in the result that you want to achieve because all along the way you cannot suppress the speech that's the point we're dealing with probably the highest ranking individual liberty that we have in this country the freedom of speech and if the t l c has reasons for wanting to proceed incrementally toward a particular goal whatever that goal might be whether it be a static so whether it be a shielding passengers from an annoying ed they can't do it along the way by suppressing speech they can do it by buying a content neutral specification requirement they can do it by saying if you want to carry a heads on a tablet in your core you need to put a volume control button  off mute button but what you can't do is you can say we think we'd like to protect passengers from annoying speech so therefore we're going to do is we the government or going to tell the passengers that we know what's best for you you don't know what's in the city parks they're fine in other parts of town we make judged you know the regulatory body makes judgments in the end the regulatory scheme is a whole is still advance materially advancing the interest in having a striking down government regulations that prohibit commercial speech in the billboard setting it's complicated by the fact that you sometimes are dealing with a public form you sometimes dealing with the ability to avert your eyes your sometimes dealing with private property so it's difficult to lump the billboard cases into one sort of framework and say this is the way it is not so with the commercial speech cases with the commercial speech cases the the criteria are fairly well established and what we know here is we know that the l c has reasonable alternatives that are less speech restrictive that are not speech restrictive at all that can accomplish their governmental purpose and we also know that their approach to this problem is radically under inclusive it's under inclusive both in terms of degree and in terms of rationale and this is what  israelis a less restrictive alternative with the on off switch but on pronk three you're saying they're not in touch they're just they just can't take into account they can't balance their interest in having this credit card machine and offsetting the payments and the owners that's an invalid balance yes because there's no direct the material nexus between the means use and the ends sort to be achieved it's radically under inclusive  because hundreds of thousands of passengers are being exposed to what the t l sleeve thinks are a knowing airds as a result of the t l c is policy that doesn't further the governmental interest  inclusiveness in terms of degree and rationale namely save the taxi owners and taxi drivers money has nothing to do with the governmental purpose and for that reason and it's still a fact as now i have one third of the achieving the government interest which it has to be under central that's and which it's not thank you rogers now it sounds so you direct relationship as a standalone requirement to each of the central hudson factors is a stand alone requirement two three and four if the city doesn't meet its burden on two or three or four it f i mean you're on i just want to touch quickly on the idea of whether there are actually alternatives feasible alternatives for the city to have entertained here i mean i the recently tailored prong the last  hudson test requires a city consideration of whether there are numerous or and obvious obviously less burdensome alternatives certainly there are no one has identified any numerous options the our well i have several responses to that first the city's experience with taxi cab taxi t v has shown that there is a problem with malfunctioning switches and bostons problems with monitoring compliance something that would be exponentially more burdensome in the for higher context because a there are a lot more far more higher vehicles and cabs be you're talking about different systems as a compared to the uniform system that's in place with taxi t v see the fact that you're not talking about fixed monitors but a tablet that the driver could easily remove and easily avert compliance and i know that i just want to note that although my adversary points to rules in the commission that call for inspections of four higher vehicles those that rule actually just applies the three times a year requirement just applies to regular d m v inspections the t inspects these vehicles actually every two years when there's a license a new license or a license renewal and for the for the commission to know set up a scheme where were inspecting these vehicles for compliance with with with these technological configurations more frequently would at least it's not obvious that that would be a less burdensome option and that's why we have the city has met it burden on on this prom just by way of helping me understand the market a little bit more some of these are hard vehicles or companies right i mean some of them are some are i run a limit i run a black yes your honor in those companies would make a decision whether they think advertising is in their revenue or not i mean if it was too disruptive to passengers wouldn't they decide gosh this is it this is annoying or am i missing something i mean meaning that the company contract with apple to install the device thought it was driving away business yes conceivably that would happen if we did permit advertising in these vehicles but then i'd also just want to know again back on the administrative scheme the problems with just regulating the content of these materials at the commission would be put in the position of if we allowed for this restrictions  the problems that would arise from that but back to your honor's question yes conceivably they could make that decision but the business model is premised on on trying to get as many vehicles to embark on  advertising and we don't know i mean my understanding is actually the commission has received inquiries from other similar to go type companies and we're not even just talking about one competitor and th so to the extent that your honour's question is touching on whether you know how many of these for hire vehicles will actually allow for video advertising i think that it was still reasonable for the city to decide that because the business model is premised on permitted it was reasonable for the call the commission to to set this restriction to to address this hard because the restrictions meet easily passed the