Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-14-01199/USCOURTS-ca7-14-01199-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 14-1199

BBL, INC., ALVA J. BUTLER, and

SANDRA K. BUTLER,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

CITY OF ANGOLA, DEAN TWITCHELL,

in his official capacity, and

VIVIAN LIKES, in her individual capacity,

Defendants-Appellees.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Indiana, Fort Wayne Division.

No. 1:13-CV-76-RLM-RBC — Robert L. Miller, Jr., Judge.

____________________

ARGUED NOVEMBER 4, 2014 — DECIDED DECEMBER 7, 2015

____________________

Before MANION, WILLIAMS, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

SYKES, Circuit Judge. Alva and Sandra Butler and their 

company, BBL, Inc. (we’ll refer to them collectively as

“BBL”), purchased a restaurant in the City of Angola, 

Indiana, and planned to convert it to an adult-entertainment

venue featuring nude dancing. Within days of the purchase,

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Angola amended its zoning and other ordinances to make

this use of the property impossible. The Butlers and their 

company brought this suit alleging claims for violation of 

their rights under the First Amendment and Indiana law. 

They moved for a preliminary injunction. The district court 

denied the motion, and the plaintiffs took this interlocutory

appeal seeking review of that decision. See 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1292(a)(1) (authorizing interlocutory appeal of orders 

granting or denying injunctive relief).

The appeal is a procedural and substantive tangle. The 

judge denied the preliminary-injunction motion in a brief

discussion at the end of a 73-page omnibus order addressing 

multiple motions then pending before the court. Included in 

the package of motions was a request by the City for judgment on the pleadings on certain parts of the legal test

applicable to BBL’s First Amendment claim. The judge

granted this motion, leaving the final step in the First 

Amendment analysis for later decision. That approach was

unusual; we question whether “judgment” on the pleadings 

can be granted on intermediate steps in a doctrinal test. This

procedural step affected the judge’s decision on the preliminary-injunction motion.

Still, the judge was right to deny the motion. At the preliminary-injunction hearing, BBL made a tactical decision not 

to contest the City’s evidence that the challenged ordinances 

were designed to reduce the negative secondary effects of

adult-entertainment establishments. BBL thus stipulated 

away the key factual issue in the analysis of the First 

Amendment claim. To the extent that the preliminaryinjunction motion was premised on the state-law claims, the 

judge also correctly denied it.

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BBL attacks other aspects of the judge’s omnibus order, 

but our jurisdiction is limited to the denial of preliminary 

injunctive relief. On that issue, we affirm.

I. Background

On August 9, 2012, Alva and Sandra Butler submitted the 

winning bid and a nonrefundable deposit to purchase a 

restaurant property located at 310 West Wendell Jacob 

Avenue in the City of Angola. The purchase also included 

the restaurant’s liquor license and an adjoining lot. The 

Butlers and their company, BBL, Inc., planned to convert the 

restaurant to a “liquor-licensed food and beverage serving 

venue ... that presents to consenting adult patrons clothed 

female performance dance entertainment.” The reference to 

“clothed” female dancing is misleading; the dancers would 

wear only “pasties and a g-string,” in keeping with Indiana’s 

public-indecency statute. See Barnes v. Glen Theatre, Inc., 

501 U.S. 560 (1991) (upholding the constitutionality of the 

statute). This new adult-entertainment venue would be 

called “Showgirl.” 

The zoning ordinance then in effect in Angola was promulgated in 2008 and permitted “sexually oriented businesses” to locate in medium-to-large commercial districts. The 

2008 ordinance also required businesses in this category to 

locate at least 1,000 feet away from public gathering places, 

residential districts, and each other. Finally, the 2008 ordinance required that any new sexually oriented business 

obtain an Improvement Location Permit. This prerequisite 

overlaps a provision in Angola’s Unified Development 

Ordinance that requires all property owners to obtain an 

Improvement Location Permit before making any change in 

land use.

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The parties agree that the property in question is located

in a medium-to-large general commercial district. If everything went as the Butlers planned, Showgirl would be the 

first sexually oriented business in Angola.

On August 16, 2012, the Butlers contacted City Attorney 

Kim Shoup to confirm that Showgirl would be able to operate at this location under the City’s zoning laws. The Common Council quickly instructed Shoup to research the scope 

of permissible regulation of sexually oriented businesses. On 

August 23 Angola’s zoning administrator, Vivian Likes, 

replied by letter to the Butlers’ inquiry, stating that this use 

was not permitted under the 2008 ordinance because a 

public gathering place was located within 1,000 feet of the 

property. On September 10 Likes clarified that the public 

gathering place in question was a proposed Steuben County 

Multi-Use Trail, on which construction would begin in the 

spring of 2013.

The Butlers thought Likes was mistaken about the legal 

effect of the proposed trail because none of the trail heads 

would be within 1,000 feet of the property and other parts of 

the trail weren’t “public gathering places” within the meaning of the ordinance. So they pressed on with their plan and 

closed on the property on September 11, 2012. 

Angola reacted to this turn of events by changing its zoning and regulatory ordinances for sexually oriented businesses. On September 17 the Common Council adopted

Angola Ordinance No. 1418-2012, entitled An Ordinance 

Establishing Licensing Requirements and Regulations for Sexually 

Oriented Businesses within the City of Angola, Indiana. This 

ordinance began with several pages of citations to court 

cases and studies regarding the negative secondary effects of 

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sexually oriented businesses. Next came three specific 

factual findings:

(1) Sexually oriented businesses ... are associated with a wide variety of adverse secondary 

effects including, but not limited to, personal 

and property crimes, prostitution, potential 

spread of disease, lewdness, public indecency, 

obscenity, illicit drug use and drug trafficking, 

negative impacts on surrounding properties, 

urban blight, litter, and sexual assault and exploitation.

(2) Sexually oriented businesses should be separated from sensitive land uses to minimize the 

impact of their secondary effects upon such uses, and should be separated from other sexually oriented businesses, to minimize the secondary effects associated with such uses and to 

prevent an unnecessary concentration of sexually oriented businesses in one area.

(3) Each of the foregoing negative secondary 

effects constitutes a harm which the City has a 

substantial government interest in preventing 

and/or abating. ... [T]he City’s interest in regulating sexually oriented businesses extends to 

preventing future secondary effects of either 

current or future sexually oriented businesses 

that may locate in the City. The City finds that 

the cases and documentation relied on in this 

ordinance are reasonably believed to be relevant to said secondary effects.

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The new licensing ordinance imposed a host of requirements on sexually oriented businesses, but only one is 

relevant here. Section 19 requires sexually oriented businesses to be located “at least 750 feet from every residence.” It’s 

undisputed that BBL’s property doesn’t meet this requirement.

On November 12 the Angola Plan Commission recommended that the Common Council amend the 2008 zoning 

ordinance to remove sexually oriented businesses as a 

permitted use in commercial districts and move them to

moderate-intensity industrial districts. In addition, to bring

the zoning code into conformity with the new licensing and 

regulatory ordinance for sexually oriented businesses, the 

Commission recommended adding an identical requirement 

of a 750-foot buffer zone from any residence. The preexisting

dispersal requirement—requiring sexually oriented businesses to be located at least 1,000 feet from residential districts, public gathering places, and each other—was retained.

Finally, the Commission recommended repealing the specific requirement in the 2008 ordinance that sexually oriented 

businesses obtain an Improvement Location Permit. The 

generally applicable provision requiring all property owners 

to obtain an Improvement Location Permit before making 

any change in land use would remain in place.

On November 19 the Common Council adopted the

Commission’s recommendations as Ordinance No. 1425-

2012, An Ordinance Amending the Unified Development Ordinance with Respect to the Regulation of Sexually Oriented Businesses. The new zoning ordinance contains a list of justifications substantially similar to those in the new licensing and 

regulatory ordinance described above.

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No. 14-1199 7

As this regulatory and rezoning activity was occurring, 

BBL began some limited construction at the property, including resurfacing the parking lot, reroofing the building, 

and taking care of miscellaneous maintenance tasks. During 

this time, Angola’s building commissioner, Dean Twitchell, 

visited the property several times. He told the Butlers that 

installing new roofing material and demolishing interior 

non-load-bearing walls wouldn’t require a permit. But on 

October 1 he ordered the Butlers to stop work when he 

noticed that a load-bearing wall was being dismantled and a 

new partition wall installed. This type of construction could 

only take place pursuant to a “construction design release”

from the State of Indiana and a building permit from the 

City. At this point the Butlers halted their construction 

efforts. By this time they had invested at least $456,000 into 

the project, including $175,000 for the property, $90,000 for 

the front parking lot, and $85,000 for the liquor license.

BBL requested and received the required construction 

design release from the State but never applied for a building permit from Angola. On November 7, 2012, BBL submitted an application to the City for a license to operate a 

sexually oriented business, as required by the new licensing 

and regulatory ordinance. BBL also applied for an Improvement Location Permit, a prerequisite for any change in 

land use in the City. By letter dated November 26, Twitchell 

denied the license application because BBL proposed to 

locate Showgirl within 750 feet of parcels containing residences. BBL appealed this decision to a hearing officer and 

lost. Soon after, Likes responded to BBL’s application for an 

Improvement Location Permit. She said the permit couldn’t 

be issued because the application was incomplete—and in 

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any case it would likely be denied because the property was 

within 750 feet of parcels containing residences.

In March 2013 BBL sued the City of Angola, Twitchell, 

and Likes in federal court alleging claims under 42 U.S.C. 

§ 1983 and state law. (We’ll refer to the defendants collectively as “the City” unless the context requires otherwise.) 

The complaint is lengthy—48 pages and 262 numbered 

paragraphs—and is organized into seven separate counts. 

Counts I and II allege that the City violated state-law requirements for zoning ordinances. Count III alleges that the 

City violated Indiana’s liquor laws by limiting the operation 

of a business holding a liquor license. Count IV alleges that 

requiring a sexually oriented business to obtain an Improvement Location Permit constitutes an unlawful prior 

restraint on speech in violation of the First Amendment. 

Count V alleges more generally that the 2012 zoning and 

licensing amendments—in particular, the new provisions 

requiring a 750-foot buffer zone from any residence—violate 

the First Amendment. The final two counts are not really 

separate substantive claims: Count VI alleges that Likes is 

liable in her individual capacity, and Count VII requests an 

award of attorney’s fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988. The complaint seeks declaratory and injunctive relief and damages.

Before the defendants answered the complaint, BBL filed 

an even longer amended complaint—168 pages and

1,046 paragraphs—adding reams of factual material in 

response to the secondary-effects caselaw and data the City 

cited in promulgating the new ordinances. The City moved 

to strike the amended complaint. A magistrate judge granted 

this motion and reinstated the original complaint.

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The City then moved for partial judgment on the pleadings. See FED. R. CIV. P. 12(c). The motion was peculiar in that 

it was directed at the state-law claims, the prior-restraint 

claim, and certain elements of the doctrinal test applicable to

the First Amendment claim. We’ll elaborate on this point in 

a moment, but for now it’s enough to say that the applicable 

legal test derives from the Supreme Court’s opinions in City 

of Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 U.S. 41 (1986), and City 

of Los Angeles v. Alameda Books, Inc., 535 U.S. 425 (2002), and 

generally requires the City to show that (1) the challenged 

zoning requirements are aimed at reducing the negative 

secondary effects of adult-entertainment establishments; (2) 

the requirements are narrowly tailored to serve to that 

purpose: and (3) the zoning scheme leaves open reasonable 

alternative sites for this form of expression. The City’s 

Rule 12(c) motion asked for judgment on the pleadings on 

steps one and two in the Renton/Alameda Books analysis. By 

separate motion filed two weeks later, the City sought

summary judgment on step three.

In due course BBL filed the preliminary-injunction motion on which this appeal is based. BBL also asked the court 

to consider granting summary judgment in its favor as the 

nonmoving party under Rule 56(f)(1) of the Federal Rules of 

Civil Procedure. The district court held hearings and eventually issued a single lengthy decision addressing this bevy 

of motions. The judge granted judgment on the pleadings for 

the City on the state-law claims, the prior-restraint claim, 

and the first two elements of the Renton/Alameda Books test. 

The judge denied the City’s motion for summary judgment

on step three of the Renton/Alameda Books analysis—the 

adequacy of alternative sites for this expressive activity—

and declined BBL’s request for summary judgment under 

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Rule 56(f)(1). Finally, in a brief two-page discussion, the 

judge denied BBL’s motion for a preliminary injunction. 

Two issues thus remain open in the district court: the adequacy of the alternative sites for adult-entertainment establishments in the City and attorney’s fees (should BBL prevail 

on the merits).

The City moved for reconsideration, but the judge denied 

the motion. Pursuant to § 1292(a)(1), BBL filed this interlocutory appeal.

II. Discussion

Section 1292(a)(1) limits our review to the district court’s 

denial of the motion for a preliminary injunction. The judge’s 

rulings on the other motions—for partial judgment on the 

pleadings, summary judgment, and to strike the amended 

complaint—are not before us except to the extent that the 

judge’s analysis of those motions affected his decision to 

deny preliminary injunctive relief.

To obtain a preliminary injunction, the moving party

must make an initial showing that (1) it will suffer irreparable harm in the period before final resolution of its claims;

(2) traditional legal remedies are inadequate; and (3) the 

claim has some likelihood of success on the merits. Girl 

Scouts of Manitou Council, Inc. v. Girl Scouts of U.S. of Am., 

Inc., 549 F.3d 1079, 1086 (7th Cir. 2008). If the moving party 

makes this showing, the court weighs the factors against one 

another, assessing whether the balance of harms favors the 

moving party or whether the harm to other parties or the 

public is sufficiently weighty that the injunction should be 

denied. ACLU of Ill. v. Alvarez, 679 F.3d 583, 589 (7th Cir. 

2012).

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The issues on this appeal relate solely to BBL’s likelihood 

of success on the merits. We review the district court’s denial 

of a preliminary injunction for abuse of discretion, although 

legal issues are reviewed de novo. Girl Scouts of Manitou 

Council, 549 F.3d at 1086.

A. First Amendment Claims

The heart of BBL’s case is its claim that the City’s actions

violated its right to expression under the First Amendment. 

As we’ve noted, BBL actually makes two First Amendment 

claims: (1) the 2012 licensing and zoning amendments 

violate its right to expressive conduct; and (2) the permit 

requirement is an impermissible prior restraint on speech.

The second claim is quite straightforward so we’ll resolve 

it first. The City’s requirement that sexually oriented businesses obtain an Improvement Location Permit was removed 

in the 2012 zoning amendments, so any challenge to that 

provision is moot, as the district court correctly concluded.

See, e.g., Fed’n of Advert. Indus. Representatives, Inc. v. City of 

Chicago, 326 F.3d 924, 930 (7th Cir. 2003) (“[R]epeal of a 

contested ordinance moots a plaintiff’s injunction request, 

absent evidence that the City plans to or already has reenacted the challenged law or one substantially similar.”).

What remains is the City’s preexisting zoning rule that all 

property owners seeking to make any change of land use 

must secure an Improvement Location Permit. Because this 

requirement is generally applicable and doesn’t discriminate 

based on the content of speech, it lacks a “close enough 

nexus to expression” for us to entertain a facial challenge

under the First Amendment. See City of Lakewood v. Plain 

Dealer Publ’g Co., 486 U.S. 750, 759, 761 (1988) (“[A] law 

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requiring building permits is rarely effective as a means of 

censorship.”).

BBL doesn’t have grounds to challenge the permit requirement as applied either. As the district court correctly 

noted, the City relied on reasons unrelated to speech or 

expression in denying BBL’s application for an Improvement 

Location Permit: (1) the application was incomplete; and 

(2) a complete Improvement Location Permit application 

would likely be denied based on the 750-foot distance requirement from residential parcels. Regarding the latter 

reason—the substantive one—the City’s use of a permit 

requirement to enforce its zoning laws is not itself problematic. To get anywhere, BBL must have some likelihood of 

success on its claim that the 2012 licensing and zoning 

amendments—more specifically, the 750-foot residence 

buffer-zone requirement—is invalid. We therefore concentrate our attention on BBL’s challenge to the validity of the 

2012 licensing and zoning amendments.

Before proceeding, however, we pause to note a potential

procedural problem in the manner in which the parties and 

the district court approached this claim. To begin, they split

a single claim into multiple components based on the elements of the applicable constitutional test. The judge then 

granted the City’s motion for judgment on the pleadings on 

certain elements of that single claim. There’s reason to 

question this approach.

“A motion for judgment on the pleadings under 

Rule 12(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is governed by the same standards as a motion to dismiss for 

failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6).” Adams v. City of 

Indianapolis, 742 F.3d 720, 727–28 (7th Cir. 2014). A motion to 

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dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) doesn’t permit piecemeal dismissals of parts of claims; the question at this stage is simply 

whether the complaint includes factual allegations that state 

a plausible claim for relief. Fortres Grand Corp. v. Warner Bros. 

Entm’t Inc., 763 F.3d 696, 700 (7th Cir. 2014) (quotation marks 

omitted) (applying Rule 12(b)(6)).

Summary judgment is different. The Federal Rules of 

Civil Procedure explicitly allow for “[p]artial [s]ummary 

[j]udgment” and require parties to “identif[y] each claim or 

defense—or the part of each claim or defense—on which summary judgment is sought.” FED. R. CIV. P. 56(a) (emphasis 

added). At the summary-judgment stage, the court can 

properly narrow the individual factual issues for trial by 

identifying the material disputes of fact that continue to 

exist.

As a procedural matter, then, the City’s motion for judgment on the pleadings on parts of the First Amendment claim

may have been improper. The judge’s decision to grant the 

motion affected his assessment of BBL’s request for a preliminary injunction, but no one noticed the potential procedural 

irregularity until we raised it at oral argument. As we’ll see, 

it’s not strictly germane to this interlocutory appeal, so we 

don’t need to resolve the question here.

Turning now to the merits, nude dancing “is expressive 

conduct within the outer perimeters of the First Amendment.” Barnes v. Glen Theatre, Inc., 501 U.S. 560, 566 (1991) 

(plurality opinion); see also City of Erie v. Pap’s A.M., 529 U.S. 

277, 289 (2000) (plurality opinion). The basic framework for 

analyzing this claim derives from the Supreme Court’s 

decisions in Renton and Alameda Books, which involved

challenges to ordinances limiting where a sexually oriented 

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business could operate. Renton involved a traditional zoning 

ordinance; Alameda Books involved an ordinance prohibiting 

multiple adult-oriented businesses in the same building.

Alameda Books was decided by a plurality plus Justice Kennedy; we’ve treated Justice Kennedy’s concurrence, the 

narrower opinion, as the holding of the case. Annex Books, 

Inc. v. City of Indianapolis, 581 F.3d 460, 465 (7th Cir. 2009); 

G.M. Enters., Inc. v. Town of St. Joseph, 350 F.3d 631, 637 (7th 

Cir. 2003).

Regulations on sexually oriented businesses are nearly 

always reviewed under intermediate scrutiny as contentneutral regulations. See, e.g., Alameda Books, 535 U.S. at 434 

(plurality opinion); id. at 447–49 (Kennedy, J., concurring); 

Renton, 475 U.S. at 41; Foxxxy Ladyz Adult World, Inc. v. Village 

of Dix, 779 F.3d 706, 711–12 (7th Cir. 2015); Ben’s Bar, Inc. v. 

Village of Somerset, 316 F.3d 702, 723–24 (7th Cir. 2003). The

“content-neutral” label in this context is a misnomer; regulations aimed at adult businesses apply to certain types of 

speech and not others. As such, Justice Kennedy remarked in 

his Alameda Books concurrence that “[t]hese ordinances are 

content based, and we should call them so.” Alameda Books, 

535 U.S. at 448 (Kennedy, J., concurring).

Regardless of the label, the first question in a case like 

this is whether the challenged regulations “are justified

without reference to the content of the regulated speech.” 

Renton, 475 U.S. at 48 (quotation marks omitted). In the 

ordinary case, regulations on sexually oriented business will 

meet this standard if they’re aimed at “the harmful secondary effects related to that conduct, i.e., the subsidiary effects 

or ‘noncommunicative impact’ of the speech.” Schultz v. City 

of Cumberland, 228 F.3d 831, 841 (7th Cir. 2000). When the 

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government relies on a secondary-effects justification to 

regulate this category of expression, we “presume that the 

government did not intend to censor speech” and therefore

apply intermediate scrutiny. Id.; see also Pap’s A.M., 529 U.S. 

at 292 (plurality opinion) (“Respondent’s argument that the 

ordinance is ‘aimed’ at suppressing expression through a 

ban on nude dancing ... is really an argument that the city 

council also had an illicit motive in enacting the ordinance. 

As we have said before, however, this Court will not strike 

down an otherwise constitutional statute on the basis of an 

alleged illicit motive.”); United States v. O’Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 

384 (1968) (“We decline to void [on First Amendment 

grounds] ... legislation which Congress had the undoubted 

power to enact and which could be reenacted in its exact 

form if the same or another legislator made a ‘wiser’ speech 

about it.”).

Given this doctrine, it’s no surprise that regulations on 

businesses offering sexually oriented entertainment are 

rarely subject to strict judicial scrutiny. Local governments 

are usually smart enough to invoke “secondary effects” in 

their regulation of adult businesses. Reciting the magic 

words doesn’t end the inquiry, of course; whether the adverse secondary effects invoked by the municipality have a 

basis in reality and are likely to be reduced by the challenged regulation are important inquiries in the intermediate-scrutiny analysis. But when a challenged regulation has 

been justified with some secondary-effects explanation, the 

potential or actual invalidity of those explanations doesn’t 

trigger strict scrutiny. As long as “one purpose of the ordinance is to combat harmful secondary effects,” the ordinance 

is regarded as content neutral (despite the legal fiction) and 

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thus intermediate scrutiny applies.1 Pap’s A.M., 529 U.S. at 

292 (plurality opinion).

We’ve previously observed that there is some confusion 

in the cases about which intermediate-scrutiny test should 

be used when. See Ben’s Bar, 316 F.3d at 724 (describing the 

confusion about the tests); G.M. Enters., 350 F.3d at 638 

(declining to choose a test). One possibility is the test for 

“time, place, and manner” restrictions that was applied in 

Renton and Alameda Books. The other is the test for incidental 

limitations on expressive conduct announced in United States 

v. O’Brien.

The Renton/Alameda Books test requires the government to 

show that the challenged ordinance (1) “is designed to serve 

a substantial governmental interest” and is narrowly tailored 

to serve that interest; and (2) “allows for reasonable alternative avenues of communication.” Renton, 475 U.S. at 50. In 

Ben’s Bar we noted that “the Supreme Court does not always 

spell out the ‘narrowly tailored’ step as part of its standard 

for evaluating time, place, and manner restrictions” in this 

context, but we held that narrow tailoring is a part of the 

Renton test, just as it is for time, place, and manner re-

 

1 In its recent decision in Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 135 S. Ct. 2218 (2015), the 

Supreme Court clarified the concept of “content-based” laws, which are 

presumptively unconstitutional and get strict scrutiny. The Court held 

that “[g]overnment regulation of speech is content based if a law applies 

to particular speech because of the topic discussed or the idea or message 

expressed.” Id. at 2227. We don’t think Reed upends established doctrine 

for evaluating regulation of businesses that offer sexually explicit 

entertainment, a category the Court has said occupies the outer fringes of 

First Amendment protection. City of Erie v. Pap’s A.M., 529 U.S. 277, 292 

(2000) (plurality opinion).

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strictions more generally. 316 F.3d at 714 n.16 (quotation 

marks omitted).

The O’Brien test is arranged differently:

[A] government regulation is sufficiently justified [1] if it is within the constitutional power 

of the Government; [2] if it furthers an important or substantial governmental interest; 

[3] if the governmental interest is unrelated to 

the suppression of free expression; and [4] if 

the incidental restriction on alleged First 

Amendment freedoms is no greater than is essential to the furtherance of that interest.

391 U.S. at 377.

In Andy’s Restaurant & Lounge, Inc. v. City of Gary, 

466 F.3d 550, 552–53 (7th Cir. 2006), we suggested that zoning ordinances are considered time, place, and manner 

restrictions—and are evaluated under the Renton/Alameda 

Books framework—while public-indecency statutes are 

properly regarded as laws incidentally affecting expressive 

conduct—to which O’Brien applies. Compare Alameda Books, 

535 U.S. at 434 (plurality opinion) (endorsing the Renton

time, place, and manner test for a zoning ordinance), and

Renton, 475 U.S. at 50 (applying the test for time, place, and 

manner restrictions for a zoning ordinance), with Pap's A.M., 

529 U.S. at 289 (plurality opinion) (applying O’Brien to a 

public-indecency statute); Barnes, 501 U.S. at 566 (plurality 

opinion) (applying O’Brien for Indiana’s pasties-and-G-string 

nude-dancing statute); and Foxxxy Ladyz, 779 F.3d at 712 

(applying O’Brien for another public-nudity ban).

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In practice, the two tests are very similar, but as we’ve 

seen, they’re framed a bit differently. Here, the challenged 

regulations are about “place.” BBL contests the City’s requirement that sexually oriented businesses locate at least 

750 feet from any residential structure. That the buffer-zone 

requirement appears in a traditional zoning ordinance and in 

a licensing ordinance makes no difference for purposes of 

BBL’s First Amendment claim, though it may be an important distinction for the state-law claims. Because the 

challenged ordinances restrict where sexually oriented businesses may locate, the Renton/Alameda Books approach 

applies.

We explained in Annex Books that the Renton/Alameda 

Books framework requires the regulating authority to establish through evidence that the challenged regulation serves a 

substantial governmental interest and is narrowly tailored 

toward that end. 581 F.3d at 462–64; see id. at 463 (“[T]he 

public benefits of the restrictions must be established by 

evidence, and not just asserted.”). This can be accomplished 

by evidence tending to show a link between the adverse 

secondary effects of adult businesses and the challenged

regulatory response. Id. 

Moreover (and this is really a procedural point), once the 

government makes this preliminary showing, the challenger 

gets to fight back. The Supreme Court explained in Alameda 

Books that the plaintiff may cast doubt on a municipality’s

rationale “either by demonstrating that the municipality’s 

evidence does not support its rationale or by furnishing 

evidence that disputes the municipality’s factual findings.” 

535 U.S. at 438–39 (plurality opinion). If the plaintiff is 

successful, it’s up to the municipality to “supplement the 

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record with evidence renewing support for a theory that 

justifies its ordinance.” Id. at 439.

If the challenged regulation survives this analysis, the final step in the Renton/Alameda Books framework asks whether the ordinance “allows for reasonable alternative avenues 

of communication.” Renton, 475 U.S. at 50. This requirement 

isn’t terribly onerous. Time, place, and manner restrictions

obviously “limit or foreclose some avenue of communication; the question is whether there are other adequate means 

of dissemination.” Matney v. County of Kenosha, 86 F.3d 692, 

698 n.4 (7th Cir. 1996). We’ve held, for example, that a zoning

ordinance limiting adult businesses to 4% of the parcels in a 

small town is constitutionally acceptable. See Ill. One News, 

Inc. v. City of Marshall, 477 F.3d 461 (7th Cir. 2007). But percentages are not dispositive; what’s required is that the 

municipality’s zoning scheme leave open “a ‘reasonable 

opportunity’ to disseminate the speech at issue.” North Ave. 

Novelties, Inc. v. City of Chicago, 88 F.3d 441, 445 (7th Cir. 

1996) (quoting Renton, 475 U.S. at 52)).

More could be said about the nuances in Justice Kennedy’s reading of the Renton/Alameda Books framework, but we 

don’t need to take the analysis any further to decide this 

case. At the preliminary-injunction hearing, BBL stipulated 

to the City’s secondary-effects justification:

We’ll stipulate that in our preliminary injunction motion we are not challenging here the 

factual predicate for the ordinances. We do 

want to challenge that. That was part of the 

amended complaint that was struck. We’ve 

asked for discovery on that. We haven’t been 

able to take discovery. So we want to challenge 

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that, at some point, but we will stipulate so 

that [Angola’s counsel] is not concerned that 

we would go up to the Court of Appeals and 

make the argument that they ... didn’t have a 

requisite basis at least for this point to enact

these ordinances. They’re relying on that. 

That’s fine. We’re not challenging that here.

In short, BBL reserved its right to contest the City’s secondary-effects justification later in the litigation but made a 

tactical decision not to do so at the preliminary-injunction 

stage. That decision was fatal to its effort to win interim 

injunctive relief. The City provided an extensive (if boilerplate) catalog of secondary-effects research that it claims

justifies the 2012 amendments to its zoning and licensing 

ordinances. By stipulating to the “factual predicate for the 

ordinances”—i.e., the secondary-effects justifications—BBL 

radically reduced its chances of obtaining a preliminary 

injunction.

What remains is the question whether the ordinances 

leave open adequate “alternative avenues of communication.” Renton, 475 U.S. at 47. The judge found a material 

factual dispute on this question and on that basis denied the 

City’s motion for summary judgment. But the judge also 

concluded that BBL hadn’t shown a likelihood of success on 

this issue. Each side submitted an expert’s report explaining 

how much land in the City remains available for sexually 

oriented businesses once the zoning restrictions are applied. 

The City’s expert identified 41 parcels containing 110.02 

acres and comprising 5.34% of the commercial and industrial 

acreage in Angola’s zoning jurisdiction. BBL’s expert, on the 

other hand, said there were no parcels available, but the 

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No. 14-1199 21

judge noted that it was unclear whether the expert had 

included land zoned for commercial use, industrial use, or 

both, or whether he applied the 750-foot residence buffer, 

the other restrictions in the zoning ordinance, or both. On 

this uncertain record, the judge declined to issue a preliminary injunction.

We see no error in that conclusion. BBL acknowledges on 

appeal that the City identified plenty of sites where an adult 

business can currently locate. Its only argument on appeal is 

that adult businesses couldn’t locate anywhere in the City 

for the two-month period between September 17, 2012, when 

the licensing ordinance was adopted, and November 19, 

2012, when the zoning ordinance was amended. This temporary state of affairs for two short months in the fall of 2012 is

no basis for a court today to issue an injunction. With the 

adoption of the November 2012 zoning amendments, it 

became possible to locate adult businesses in Angola, and 

that’s enough to defeat BBL’s argument. See Brown v. Bartholomew Consol. Sch. Corp., 442 F.3d 588, 596 (7th Cir. 2006)

(explaining that a claim for injunctive relief becomes moot 

when “the threat of the act sought to be enjoined [has] 

dissipate[d]”).

B. State-Law Claims

BBL also based its motion for a preliminary injunction on 

its two state-law claims. The judge granted judgment on the 

pleadings for the City on these claims and thus did not 

consider them in the preliminary-injunction calculus. BBL 

reprises its merits arguments on these claims, but our jurisdiction doesn’t include review of the judge’s order granting 

judgment on the pleadings. We’ll address these issues only 

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to the extent that they bear on the preliminary-injunction 

question.

Indiana law requires municipalities to amend their zoning ordinances through a process involving the city’s plan 

commission and board of zoning appeals. See City of Carmel 

v. Martin Marietta Materials, Inc., 883 N.E.2d 781, 784–85 (Ind. 

2008) (describing the statutory framework for zoning enactments pursuant to the “600 Series Procedures” of Indiana 

Code §§ 36-7-4-601 to 616). This procedure “must be followed in order for those ordinances to be valid.” Id. at 784.

BBL argues that the licensing ordinance’s 750-foot residential

separation requirement was in reality a zoning provision, 

and because the legal process required for amending zoning 

ordinances wasn’t followed, the ordinance is invalid.

The City maintains that the licensing ordinance doesn’t 

qualify as a zoning ordinance under Indiana law. The judge 

agreed. We don’t see how the classification matters for 

purposes of BBL’s request for a preliminary injunction. The 

same 750-foot buffer zone was included in the November 

2012 amendments to the zoning ordinance, and BBL doesn’t 

challenge the City’s process for adopting these amendments. 

So a preliminary injunction against the same provision in the 

licensing ordinance would be pointless. 

Finally, BBL argues that it had vested nonconforming use 

rights, which arose at the time it submitted its winning bid 

on the property on August 9, 2012. Typically, nonconforming-use exceptions to zoning ordinances require actual 

nonconforming use of the property before the newly adopted 

regulations became effective. Metro. Dev. Comm'n of Marion 

Cnty. v. Pinnacle Media, LLC, 836 N.E.2d 422, 425 (Ind. 2005)

(“A nonconforming use is a use of property that lawfully 

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No. 14-1199 23

existed prior to the enactment of a zoning ordinance that 

continues after the ordinance’s effective date even though it 

does not comply with the ordinance’s restrictions.”). Changes in use zoning while a property is in use can raise constitutional concerns, so municipalities usually have a system for

protecting, at least to a limited extent, the property owner’s 

continued use of the property under the old zoning rules. See 

id. (“[T]he government could not terminate [the use once it’s 

established] without implicating the Due Process or Takings 

Clauses of the Fifth Amendment of the federal constitution ... .”).

At least two things are different here from the typical 

vested-rights scenario. First, there hasn’t been any actual use

of the property as a sexually oriented business. At most, BBL 

purchased the property, performed limited construction, and

applied for a few government authorizations. This isn’t 

necessarily an insurmountable obstacle, at least in principle: 

[W]here a property owner has manifested an 

intent to use the property for a certain use and 

has made substantial investments and preparatory steps in good faith reliance on thenexisting zoning regulations, the courts may relax the requirement of an actual preexisting use 

and find a “vested right to a nonconforming 

use.”

2 PATRICIA E. SALKIN, AMERICAN LAW OF ZONING § 12:16 (5th 

ed. 2015); see also Pinnacle Media, 836 N.E.2d at 428–29 (“[The 

operative] question [is] ... whether, at the time of the change 

in the zoning ordinance, construction had proceeded on the 

project to the point that the developer had a vested interest.”); City of New Haven v. Flying J., Inc., 912 N.E.2d 420, 426 

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(Ind. Ct. App. 2009) (calling for “fact-sensitive analysis to 

determine whether vested rights have accrued prior to 

application for a building permit or construction” but stating 

that “construction definitely does establish a vested right”).

The second difference between this case and the usual 

vested-rights case is dispositive, however. Here, the judge

held that under Indiana law BBL couldn’t advance a vestedrights claim based on unlawful construction activity on the 

property. Cf. Wesner v. Metro. Dev. Comm’n of Marion Cnty., 

609 N.E.2d 1135, 1138 (Ind. Ct. App. 1993) (describing the 

nonconforming use doctrine as requiring “a lawful preexisting nonconforming use”). The judge concluded, based 

on the evidence presented at the preliminary-injunction 

hearing, that BBL’s construction at the site was conducted 

unlawfully in violation of the City’s building-permit requirement. That strikes us as a reasonable application of 

Indiana law, at least for purposes of denying preliminary 

injunctive relief.

BBL makes other arguments on appeal but none are within the scope of our jurisdiction. For the foregoing reasons, 

the motion for a preliminary injunction was properly denied.

AFFIRMED.

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