(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2014 1 

Syllabus 

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is

being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.

The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been

prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. 

See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

Syllabus 

CITY OF LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA v. PATEL ET AL. 

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR 

THE NINTH CIRCUIT 

No. 13–1175. Argued March 3, 2015—Decided June 22, 2015 

Petitioner, the city of Los Angeles (City), requires hotel operators to 

record and keep specific information about their guests on the premises for a 90-day period. Los Angeles Municipal Code §41.49. These 

records “shall be made available to any officer of the Los Angeles Police Department for inspection . . . at a time and in a manner that

minimizes any interference with the operation of the business,” 

§41.49(3)(a), and a hotel operator’s failure to make the records available is a criminal misdemeanor, §11.00(m). Respondents, a group of

motel operators and a lodging association, brought a facial challenge 

to §41.49(3)(a) on Fourth Amendment grounds. The District Court 

entered judgment for the City, finding that respondents lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in their records. The Ninth Circuit 

subsequently reversed, determining that inspections under 

§41.49(3)(a) are Fourth Amendment searches and that such searches 

are unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment because hotel owners are subjected to punishment for failure to turn over their records

without first being afforded the opportunity for precompliance review. 

Held: 

1. Facial challenges under the Fourth Amendment are not categorically barred or especially disfavored. Pp. 4–8.

(a) Facial challenges to statutes—as opposed to challenges to 

particular applications of statutes—have been permitted to proceed

under a diverse array of constitutional provisions. See, e.g., Sorrell v. 

IMS Health Inc., 564 U. S. ___ (First Amendment); District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570 (Second Amendment). The Fourth 

Amendment is no exception. Sibron v. New York, 392 U. S. 40, distinguished. This Court has entertained facial challenges to statutes 
 

 

 

2 LOS ANGELES v. PATEL 

Syllabus 

authorizing warrantless searches, declaring them, on several occasions, facially invalid, see, e.g., Chandler v. Miller, 520 U. S. 305, 

308–309. Pp. 4–7.

(b) Petitioner contends that facial challenges to statutes authorizing warrantless searches must fail because they will never be unconstitutional in all applications, but this Court’s precedents demonstrate that such challenges can be brought, and can succeed. Under 

the proper facial-challenge analysis, only applications of a statute in 

which the statute actually authorizes or prohibits conduct are considered. See, e.g., Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 

U. S. 833. When addressing a facial challenge to a statute authorizing warrantless searches, the proper focus is on searches that the law

actually authorizes and not those that could proceed irrespective of

whether they are authorized by the statute, e.g., where exigent circumstances, a warrant, or consent to search exists. Pp. 7–8.

2. Section 41.49(3)(a) is facially unconstitutional because it fails to

provide hotel operators with an opportunity for precompliance review. Pp. 9–17.

(a) “ ‘[S]earches conducted outside the judicial process . . . are 

per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment—subject only to a 

few . . . exceptions.’ ” Arizona v. Gant, 556 U. S. 332, 338. One exception is for administrative searches. See Camara v. Municipal 

Court of City and County of San Francisco, 387 U. S. 523, 534. To be 

constitutional, the subject of an administrative search must, among

other things, be afforded an opportunity to obtain precompliance review before a neutral decisionmaker. See See v. Seattle, 387 U. S. 

541, 545. Assuming the administrative search exception otherwise 

applies here, §41.49 is facially invalid because it fails to afford hotel 

operators any opportunity for precompliance review. To be clear, a 

hotel owner must only be afforded an opportunity for precompliance

review; actual review need occur only when a hotel operator objects to

turning over the records. This opportunity can be provided without

imposing onerous burdens on law enforcement. For instance, officers 

in the field can issue administrative subpoenas without probable

cause that a regulation is being infringed. This narrow holding does 

not call into question those parts of §41.49 requiring hotel operators

to keep records nor does it prevent police from obtaining access to 

those records where a hotel operator consents to the search, where 

the officer has a proper administrative warrant, or where some other

exception to the warrant requirement applies. Pp. 9–13.

(b) Petitioner’s argument that the ordinance is facially valid under the more relaxed standard for closely regulated industries is rejected. See Marshall v. Barlow’s, Inc., 436 U. S. 307, 313. This Court 

has only recognized four such industries, and nothing inherent in the 
 

Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 3 

Syllabus 

operation of hotels poses a comparable clear and significant risk to

the public welfare. Additionally, because the majority of regulations 

applicable to hotels apply to many businesses, to classify hotels as

closely regulated would permit what has always been a narrow exception to swallow the rule. But even if hotels were closely regulated, 

§41.49 would still contravene the Fourth Amendment as it fails to 

satisfy the additional criteria that must be met for searches of closely

regulated industries to be reasonable. See New York v. Burger, 482 

U. S. 691, 702–703. Pp. 13–17. 

738 F. 3d 1058, affirmed. 

SOTOMAYOR, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which KENNEDY, GINSBURG, BREYER, and KAGAN, JJ., joined. SCALIA, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and THOMAS, J., joined. 

ALITO, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which THOMAS, J., joined. 
 

 

_________________ 

_________________ 

Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 1 

Opinion of the Court 

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the

preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to

notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order

that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 13–1175 

CITY OF LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, PETITIONER 

v. NARANJIBHAI PATEL, ET AL. 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 

APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
 

[June 22, 2015] 

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR delivered the opinion of the Court. 

Respondents brought a Fourth Amendment challenge to

a provision of the Los Angeles Municipal Code that compels “[e]very operator of a hotel to keep a record” containing specified information concerning guests and to make

this record “available to any officer of the Los Angeles 

Police Department for inspection” on demand. Los Angeles Municipal Code §§41.49(2), (3)(a), (4) (2015). The 

questions presented are whether facial challenges to statutes can be brought under the Fourth Amendment and, if

so, whether this provision of the Los Angeles Municipal 

Code is facially invalid. We hold facial challenges can be 

brought under the Fourth Amendment. We further hold 

that the provision of the Los Angeles Municipal Code that 

requires hotel operators to make their registries available 

to the police on demand is facially unconstitutional because it penalizes them for declining to turn over their 

records without affording them any opportunity for precompliance review. 
 

2 LOS ANGELES v. PATEL 

Opinion of the Court 

I 

A 

Los Angeles Municipal Code (LAMC) §41.49 requires

hotel operators to record information about their guests,

including: the guest’s name and address; the number of 

people in each guest’s party; the make, model, and license 

plate number of any guest’s vehicle parked on hotel property; the guest’s date and time of arrival and scheduled

departure date; the room number assigned to the guest;

the rate charged and amount collected for the room; and

the method of payment. §41.49(2). Guests without reservations, those who pay for their rooms with cash, and any

guests who rent a room for less than 12 hours must present photographic identification at the time of check-in,

and hotel operators are required to record the number and

expiration date of that document. §41.49(4). For those 

guests who check in using an electronic kiosk, the hotel’s

records must also contain the guest’s credit card information. §41.49(2)(b). This information can be maintained 

in either electronic or paper form, but it must be “kept on

the hotel premises in the guest reception or guest check-in

area or in an office adjacent” thereto for a period of 90 

days. §41.49(3)(a).

Section 41.49(3)(a)—the only provision at issue here—

states, in pertinent part, that hotel guest records “shall be

made available to any officer of the Los Angeles Police 

Department for inspection,” provided that “[w]henever

possible, the inspection shall be conducted at a time and in 

a manner that minimizes any interference with the operation of the business.” A hotel operator’s failure to make

his or her guest records available for police inspection is a 

misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and a

$1,000 fine. §11.00(m) (general provision applicable to 

entire LAMC). 
Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 3 

Opinion of the Court 

B 

In 2003, respondents, a group of motel operators along 

with a lodging association, sued the city of Los Angeles

(City or petitioner) in three consolidated cases challenging 

the constitutionality of §41.49(3)(a). They sought declaratory and injunctive relief. The parties “agree[d] that the

sole issue in the . . . action [would be] a facial constitutional challenge” to §41.49(3)(a) under the Fourth Amendment. App. 195. They further stipulated that respondents 

have been subjected to mandatory record inspections

under the ordinance without consent or a warrant. Id., at 

194–195. 

Following a bench trial, the District Court entered

judgment in favor of the City, holding that respondents’ 

facial challenge failed because they lacked a reasonable 

expectation of privacy in the records subject to inspection. 

A divided panel of the Ninth Circuit affirmed on the same

grounds. 686 F. 3d 1085 (2012). On rehearing en banc,

however, the Court of Appeals reversed. 738 F. 3d 1058, 

1065 (2013).

The en banc court first determined that a police officer’s

nonconsensual inspection of hotel records under §41.49 is

a Fourth Amendment “search” because “[t]he business 

records covered by §41.49 are the hotel’s private property”

and the hotel therefore “has the right to exclude others 

from prying into the[ir] contents.” Id., at 1061. Next, the 

court assessed “whether the searches authorized by §41.49

are reasonable.” Id., at 1063. Relying on Donovan v. Lone 

Steer, Inc., 464 U. S. 408 (1984), and See v. Seattle, 387 

U. S. 541 (1967), the court held that §41.49 is facially 

unconstitutional “as it authorizes inspections” of hotel

records “without affording an opportunity to ‘obtain judicial review of the reasonableness of the demand prior to 

suffering penalties for refusing to comply.’” 738 F. 3d, at 

1065 (quoting See, 387 U. S., at 545). 

Two dissenting opinions were filed. The first dissent 
4 LOS ANGELES v. PATEL 

 

Opinion of the Court 

argued that facial relief should rarely be available for 

Fourth Amendment challenges, and was inappropriate 

here because the ordinance would be constitutional in 

those circumstances where police officers demand access 

to hotel records with a warrant in hand or exigent circumstances justify the search. 738 F. 3d, at 1065–1070 (opinion of Tallman, J.). The second dissent conceded that 

inspections under §41.49 constitute Fourth Amendment 

searches, but faulted the majority for assessing the reasonableness of these searches without accounting for the 

weakness of the hotel operators’ privacy interest in the 

content of their guest registries. Id., at 1070–1074 (opinion of Clifton, J.).

 We granted certiorari, 574 U. S. ___ (2014), and now 

affirm.

II 

 We first clarify that facial challenges under the Fourth 

Amendment are not categorically barred or especially 

disfavored. 

A 

 A facial challenge is an attack on a statute itself as 

opposed to a particular application. While such challenges 

are “the most difficult . . . to mount successfully,” United 

States v. Salerno, 481 U. S. 739, 745 (1987), the Court 

has never held that these claims cannot be brought 

under any otherwise enforceable provision of the Constitution. Cf. Fallon, Fact and Fiction About Facial Challenges, 99 Cal. L. Rev. 915, 918 (2011) (pointing to several 

Terms in which “the Court adjudicated more facial challenges on the merits than it did as-applied challenges”). 

Instead, the Court has allowed such challenges to proceed 

under a diverse array of constitutional provisions. See, 

e.g., Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc., 564 U. S. ___ (2011) (First 

Amendment); District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570 
Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 5 

Opinion of the Court 

(2008) (Second Amendment); Chicago v. Morales, 527 U. S. 

41 (1999) (Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment); Kraft Gen. Foods, Inc. v. Iowa Dept. of Revenue and 

Finance, 505 U. S. 71 (1992) (Foreign Commerce Clause). 

Fourth Amendment challenges to statutes authorizing 

warrantless searches are no exception. Any claim to the 

contrary reflects a misunderstanding of our decision in 

Sibron v. New York, 392 U. S. 40 (1968). In Sibron, two 

criminal defendants challenged the constitutionality of a

statute authorizing police to, among other things, “‘stop

any person abroad in a public place whom [they] reasonably suspec[t] is committing, has committed or is about to

commit a felony.” Id., at 43 (quoting then N. Y. Code 

Crim. Proc. §180–a). The Court held that the search of 

one of the defendants under the statute violated the 

Fourth Amendment, 392 U. S., at 59, 62, but refused to 

opine more broadly on the statute’s validity, stating that 

“[t]he constitutional validity of a warrantless search is

pre-eminently the sort of question which can only be decided in the concrete factual context of the individual 

case.” Id., at 59. 

This statement from Sibron—which on its face might

suggest an intent to foreclose all facial challenges to statutes authorizing warrantless searches—must be understood in the broader context of that case. In the same 

section of the opinion, the Court emphasized that the

“operative categories” of the New York law at issue were

“susceptible of a wide variety of interpretations,” id., at 60, 

and that “[the law] was passed too recently for the State’s

highest court to have ruled upon many of the questions

involving potential intersections with federal constitutional

guarantees,” id., at 60, n. 20. Sibron thus stands for the 

simple proposition that claims for facial relief under the

Fourth Amendment are unlikely to succeed when there is

substantial ambiguity as to what conduct a statute authorizes: Where a statute consists of “extraordinarily 
 

6 LOS ANGELES v. PATEL 

Opinion of the Court 

elastic categories,” it may be “impossible to tell” whether

and to what extent it deviates from the requirements of 

the Fourth Amendment. Id., at 59, 61, n. 20. 

This reading of Sibron is confirmed by subsequent precedents. Since Sibron, the Court has entertained facial 

challenges under the Fourth Amendment to statutes 

authorizing warrantless searches. See, e.g., Vernonia 

School District 47J v. Acton, 515 U. S. 646, 648 (1995)

(“We granted certiorari to decide whether” petitioner’s 

student athlete drug testing policy “violates the Fourth

and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution”); Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives’ Assn., 489 

U. S. 602, 633, n. 10 (1989) (“[R]espondents have challenged the administrative scheme on its face. We deal 

therefore with whether the [drug] tests contemplated by

the regulation can ever be conducted”); cf. Illinois v. Krull, 

480 U. S. 340, 354 (1987) (“[A] person subject to a statute

authorizing searches without a warrant or probable cause 

may bring an action seeking a declaration that the statute

is unconstitutional and an injunction barring its implementation”). Perhaps more importantly, the Court has on 

numerous occasions declared statutes facially invalid

under the Fourth Amendment. For instance, in Chandler 

v. Miller, 520 U. S. 305, 308–309 (1997), the Court struck 

down a Georgia statute requiring candidates for certain 

state offices to take and pass a drug test, concluding that

this “requirement . . . [did] not fit within the closely

guarded category of constitutionally permissible suspicionless searches.” Similar examples abound. See, e.g., Ferguson v. Charleston, 532 U. S. 67, 86 (2001) (holding that 

a hospital policy authorizing “nonconsensual, warrantless, 

and suspicionless searches” contravened the Fourth 

Amendment); Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573, 574, 576 

(1980) (holding that a New York statute “authoriz[ing] 

police officers to enter a private residence without a warrant and with force, if necessary, to make a routine felony 
 

 

Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 7 

Opinion of the Court 

arrest” was “not consistent with the Fourth Amendment”); 

Torres v. Puerto Rico, 442 U. S. 465, 466, 471 (1979) (holding that a Puerto Rico statute authorizing “police to search

the luggage of any person arriving in Puerto Rico from the 

United States” was unconstitutional because it failed to 

require either probable cause or a warrant). 

B 

Petitioner principally contends that facial challenges to 

statutes authorizing warrantless searches must fail because such searches will never be unconstitutional in all 

applications. Cf. Salerno, 481 U. S., at 745 (to obtain

facial relief the party seeking it “must establish that no

set of circumstances exists under which the [statute]

would be valid”). In particular, the City points to situations where police are responding to an emergency, where 

the subject of the search consents to the intrusion, and

where police are acting under a court-ordered warrant. 

See Brief for Petitioner 19–20. While petitioner frames 

this argument as an objection to respondents’ challenge in 

this case, its logic would preclude facial relief in every 

Fourth Amendment challenge to a statute authorizing 

warrantless searches. For this reason alone, the City’s

argument must fail: The Court’s precedents demonstrate

not only that facial challenges to statutes authorizing

warrantless searches can be brought, but also that they

can succeed. See Part II–A, supra. 

Moreover, the City’s argument misunderstands how 

courts analyze facial challenges. Under the most exacting 

standard the Court has prescribed for facial challenges, a

plaintiff must establish that a “law is unconstitutional in

all of its applications.” Washington State Grange v. Washington State Republican Party, 552 U. S. 442, 449 (2008).

But when assessing whether a statute meets this standard, the Court has considered only applications of the 
 

 

8 LOS ANGELES v. PATEL 

Opinion of the Court 

statute in which it actually authorizes or prohibits conduct. For instance, in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992), the Court struck

down a provision of Pennsylvania’s abortion law that

required a woman to notify her husband before obtaining 

an abortion. Those defending the statute argued that

facial relief was inappropriate because most women voluntarily notify their husbands about a planned abortion and 

for them the law would not impose an undue burden. The 

Court rejected this argument, explaining: The 

“[l]egislation is measured for consistency with the Constitution by its impact on those whose conduct it affects. . . . 

The proper focus of the constitutional inquiry is the group

for whom the law is a restriction, not the group for whom 

the law is irrelevant.” Id., at 894. 

Similarly, when addressing a facial challenge to a statute authorizing warrantless searches, the proper focus of

the constitutional inquiry is searches that the law actually 

authorizes, not those for which it is irrelevant. If exigency 

or a warrant justifies an officer’s search, the subject of the 

search must permit it to proceed irrespective of whether it 

is authorized by statute. Statutes authorizing warrantless

searches also do no work where the subject of a search has 

consented. Accordingly, the constitutional “applications”

that petitioner claims prevent facial relief here are irrelevant to our analysis because they do not involve actual 

applications of the statute.1 

—————— 

1Relatedly, the United States claims that a statute authorizing warrantless searches may still have independent force if it imposes a

penalty for failing to cooperate in a search conducted under a warrant 

or in an exigency. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 19. 

This argument gets things backwards. An otherwise facially unconstitutional statute cannot be saved from invalidation based solely on the 

existence of a penalty provision that applies when searches are not 

actually authorized by the statute. This argument is especially unconvincing where, as here, an independent obstruction of justice statute 

imposes a penalty for “willfully, resist[ing], delay[ing], or obstruct[ing] 
Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 9 

Opinion of the Court 

III 

Turning to the merits of the particular claim before us, 

we hold that §41.49(3)(a) is facially unconstitutional because it fails to provide hotel operators with an opportunity for precompliance review. 

A 

The Fourth Amendment protects “[t]he right of the

people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and

effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” It 

further provides that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon

probable cause.” Based on this constitutional text, the 

Court has repeatedly held that “‘searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by [a]

judge or [a] magistrate [judge], are per se unreasonable . . . 

subject only to a few specifically established and welldelineated exceptions.’” Arizona v. Gant, 556 U. S. 332, 

338 (2009) (quoting Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 

357 (1967)). This rule “applies to commercial premises as

well as to homes.” Marshall v. Barlow’s, Inc., 436 U. S. 

307, 312 (1978).

Search regimes where no warrant is ever required may

be reasonable where “‘special needs . . . make the warrant

and probable-cause requirement impracticable,’” Skinner, 

489 U. S., at 619 (quoting Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U. S. 

868, 873 (1987) (some internal quotation marks omitted)),

and where the “primary purpose” of the searches is

“[d]istinguishable from the general interest in crime control,” Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U. S. 32, 44 (2000). 

Here, we assume that the searches authorized by §41.49

serve a “special need” other than conducting criminal 

investigations: They ensure compliance with the record-

—————— 

any public officer . . . in the discharge or attempt to discharge any duty

of his or her office of employment.” Cal. Penal Code Ann. §148(a)(1)
 

(West 2014).
 
 

 

 

10 LOS ANGELES v. PATEL 

Opinion of the Court 

keeping requirement, which in turn deters criminals from

operating on the hotels’ premises.2 The Court has referred 

to this kind of search as an “administrative searc[h].” 

Camara v. Municipal Court of City and County of San 

Francisco, 387 U. S. 523, 534 (1967). Thus, we consider 

whether §41.49 falls within the administrative search

exception to the warrant requirement. 

The Court has held that absent consent, exigent circumstances, or the like, in order for an administrative search 

to be constitutional, the subject of the search must be

afforded an opportunity to obtain precompliance review

before a neutral decisionmaker. See See, 387 U. S., at 545; 

Lone Steer, 464 U. S., at 415 (noting that an administrative search may proceed with only a subpoena where the

subpoenaed party is sufficiently protected by the opportunity to “question the reasonableness of the subpoena,

before suffering any penalties for refusing to comply with

it, by raising objections in an action in district court”). 

And, we see no reason why this minimal requirement is 

inapplicable here. While the Court has never attempted to

prescribe the exact form an opportunity for precompliance

review must take, the City does not even attempt to argue 

that §41.49(3)(a) affords hotel operators any opportunity 

whatsoever. Section 41.49(3)(a) is, therefore, facially 

invalid. 

A hotel owner who refuses to give an officer access to his

or her registry can be arrested on the spot. The Court has 

held that business owners cannot reasonably be put to this

kind of choice. Camara, 387 U. S., at 533 (holding that

“broad statutory safeguards are no substitute for individualized review, particularly when those safeguards may 

—————— 

2Respondents contend that §41.49’s principal purpose instead is to

facilitate criminal investigation. Brief for Respondents 44–47. Because 

we find that the searches authorized by §41.49 are unconstitutional 

even if they serve the City’s asserted purpose, we decline to address 

this argument. 
Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 11 

Opinion of the Court 

only be invoked at the risk of a criminal penalty”). Absent 

an opportunity for precompliance review, the ordinance

creates an intolerable risk that searches authorized by it 

will exceed statutory limits, or be used as a pretext to

harass hotel operators and their guests. Even if a hotel 

has been searched 10 times a day, every day, for three 

months, without any violation being found, the operator 

can only refuse to comply with an officer’s demand to turn

over the registry at his or her own peril.

To be clear, we hold only that a hotel owner must be

afforded an opportunity to have a neutral decisionmaker 

review an officer’s demand to search the registry before he 

or she faces penalties for failing to comply. Actual review 

need only occur in those rare instances where a hotel

operator objects to turning over the registry. Moreover, 

this opportunity can be provided without imposing onerous burdens on those charged with an administrative

scheme’s enforcement. For instance, respondents accept

that the searches authorized by §41.49(3)(a) would be

constitutional if they were performed pursuant to an

administrative subpoena. Tr. of Oral Arg. 36–37. These 

subpoenas, which are typically a simple form, can be

issued by the individual seeking the record—here, officers

in the field—without probable cause that a regulation is

being infringed. See See, 387 U. S., at 544 (“[T]he demand 

to inspect may be issued by the agency”). Issuing a subpoena will usually be the full extent of an officer’s burden 

because “the great majority of businessmen can be expected in normal course to consent to inspection without

warrant.” Barlow’s, Inc., 436 U. S., at 316. Indeed, the 

City has cited no evidence suggesting that without an

ordinance authorizing on-demand searches, hotel operators would regularly refuse to cooperate with the police. 

In those instances, however, where a subpoenaed hotel 

operator believes that an attempted search is motivated 

by illicit purposes, respondents suggest it would be suffi-
 

12 LOS ANGELES v. PATEL 

Opinion of the Court 

cient if he or she could move to quash the subpoena before

any search takes place. Tr. of Oral Arg. 38–39. A neutral 

decisionmaker, including an administrative law judge, 

would then review the subpoenaed party’s objections

before deciding whether the subpoena is enforceable. 

Given the limited grounds on which a motion to quash can 

be granted, such challenges will likely be rare. And, in the 

even rarer event that an officer reasonably suspects that a 

hotel operator may tamper with the registry while the

motion to quash is pending, he or she can guard the registry until the required hearing can occur, which ought not

take long. Riley v. California, 573 U. S. ___ (2014) (slip 

op., at 12) (police may seize and hold a cell phone “to

prevent destruction of evidence while seeking a warrant”); 

Illinois v. McArthur, 531 U. S. 326, 334 (2001) (citing 

cases upholding the constitutionality of “temporary restraints where [they are] needed to preserve evidence until 

police could obtain a warrant”). Cf. Missouri v. McNeely, 

569 U. S. ___ (2013) (slip op., at 12) (noting that many

States have procedures in place for considering warrant

applications telephonically).3 

Procedures along these lines are ubiquitous. A 2002 

report by the Department of Justice “identified 

approximately 335 existing administrative subpoena

authorities held by various [federal] executive branch 

entities.” Office of Legal Policy, Report to Congress

on the Use of Administrative Subpoena Authorities by

Executive Branch Agencies and Entities 3, online 

at http://www.justice.gov/archive/olp/rpt_to_congress.htm 

(All Internet materials as visited June 19, 2015, and 

available in Clerk of Court’s case file). Their prevalence 

—————— 

3 JUSTICE SCALIA professes to be baffled at the idea that we could 

suggest that in certain circumstances, police officers may seize something that they cannot immediately search. Post, at 10–11 (dissenting 

opinion). But that is what this Court’s cases have explicitly endorsed, 

including Riley just last Term. 
 

Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 13 

Opinion of the Court 

confirms what common sense alone would otherwise lead 

us to conclude: In most contexts, business owners can be 

afforded at least an opportunity to contest an administrative search’s propriety without unduly compromising the

government’s ability to achieve its regulatory aims.

Of course administrative subpoenas are only one way in 

which an opportunity for precompliance review can be

made available. But whatever the precise form, the availability of precompliance review alters the dynamic between the officer and the hotel to be searched, and reduces 

the risk that officers will use these administrative searches 

as a pretext to harass business owners. 

Finally, we underscore the narrow nature of our holding. Respondents have not challenged and nothing in our 

opinion calls into question those parts of §41.49 that require hotel operators to maintain guest registries containing certain information. And, even absent legislative

action to create a procedure along the lines discussed 

above, see supra, at 11, police will not be prevented from 

obtaining access to these documents. As they often do,

hotel operators remain free to consent to searches of their 

registries and police can compel them to turn them over 

if they have a proper administrative warrant—including 

one that was issued ex parte—or if some other exception 

to the warrant requirement applies, including exigent 

circumstances.4 

B 

Rather than arguing that §41.49(3)(a) is constitutional 

—————— 

4 In suggesting that our holding today will somehow impede law enforcement from achieving its important aims, JUSTICE SCALIA relies on 

instances where hotels were used as “prisons for migrants smuggled 

across the border and held for ransom” or as “rendezvous sites where 

child sex workers meet their clients on threat of violence from their 

procurers.” See post, at 2. It is hard to imagine circumstances more 

exigent than these. 
 

 

 

 

14 LOS ANGELES v. PATEL 

Opinion of the Court 

under the general administrative search doctrine, the City

and JUSTICE SCALIA contend that hotels are “closely regulated,” and that the ordinance is facially valid under the

more relaxed standard that applies to searches of this 

category of businesses. Brief for Petitioner 28–47; post, at 

5. They are wrong on both counts.

Over the past 45 years, the Court has identified only

four industries that “have such a history of government 

oversight that no reasonable expectation of privacy . . .

could exist for a proprietor over the stock of such an enterprise,” Barlow’s, Inc., 436 U. S., 313. Simply listing

these industries refutes petitioner’s argument that hotels 

should be counted among them. Unlike liquor sales, Colonnade Catering Corp. v. United States, 397 U. S. 72 

(1970), firearms dealing, United States v. Biswell, 406 

U. S. 311, 311–312 (1972), mining, Donovan v. Dewey, 452 

U. S. 594 (1981), or running an automobile junkyard, New 

York v. Burger, 482 U. S. 691 (1987), nothing inherent in 

the operation of hotels poses a clear and significant risk to

the public welfare. See, e.g., id., at 709 (“Automobile

junkyards and vehicle dismantlers provide the major 

market for stolen vehicles and vehicle parts”); Dewey, 452 

U. S., at 602 (describing the mining industry as “among

the most hazardous in the country”).5 

Moreover, “[t]he clear import of our cases is that the

closely regulated industry . . . is the exception.” Barlow’s, 

Inc., 436 U. S., at 313. To classify hotels as pervasively

regulated would permit what has always been a narrow 

exception to swallow the rule. The City wisely refrains

from arguing that §41.49 itself renders hotels closely 

regulated. Nor do any of the other regulations on which 

—————— 

5 JUSTICE SCALIA’s effort to depict hotels as raising a comparable degree of risk rings hollow. See post, at 1, 14. Hotels—like practically all

commercial premises or services—can be put to use for nefarious ends.

But unlike the industries that the Court has found to be closely regulated, hotels are not intrinsically dangerous. 
 

 

Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 15 

Opinion of the Court 

petitioner and JUSTICE SCALIA rely—regulations requiring

hotels to, inter alia, maintain a license, collect taxes, 

conspicuously post their rates, and meet certain sanitary

standards—establish a comprehensive scheme of regulation that distinguishes hotels from numerous other businesses. See Brief for Petitioner 33–34 (citing regulations); 

post, at 7 (same). All businesses in Los Angeles need a 

license to operate. LAMC §§21.03(a), 21.09(a). While 

some regulations apply to a smaller set of businesses, see 

e.g. Cal. Code Regs., tit. 25, §40 (2015) (requiring linens 

to be changed between rental guests), online at 

http://www.oal.ca.gov/ccr.htm, these can hardly be said to

have created a “‘comprehensive’” scheme that puts hotel

owners on notice that their “‘property will be subject to

periodic inspections undertaken for specific purposes,’” 

Burger, 482 U. S., at 705, n. 16 (quoting Dewey, 452 U. S., 

at 600). Instead, they are more akin to the widely applicable minimum wage and maximum hour rules that the 

Court rejected as a basis for deeming “the entirety of 

American interstate commerce” to be closely regulated in 

Barlow’s, Inc. 436 U. S., at 314. If such general regulations were sufficient to invoke the closely regulated industry exception, it would be hard to imagine a type of business that would not qualify. See Brief for Google Inc. as 

Amicus Curiae 16–17; Brief for the Chamber of Commerce 

of United States of America as Amicus Curiae 12–13. 

Petitioner attempts to recast this hodgepodge of regulations as a comprehensive scheme by referring to a

“centuries-old tradition” of warrantless searches of hotels. 

Brief for Petitioner 34–36. History is relevant when determining whether an industry is closely regulated. See, 

e.g., Burger, 482 U. S., at 707. The historical record here, 

however, is not as clear as petitioner suggests. The City

and JUSTICE SCALIA principally point to evidence that 

hotels were treated as public accommodations. Brief for 

Petitioner 34–36; post, at 5–6, and n. 1. For instance, the 
 

 

 

16 LOS ANGELES v. PATEL 

Opinion of the Court 

Commonwealth of Massachusetts required innkeepers to

“‘furnish[] . . . suitable provisions and lodging, for the 

refreshment and entertainment of strangers and travellers, pasturing and stable room, hay and provender . . . for 

their horses and cattle.’” Brief for Petitioner 35 (quoting

An Act For The Due Regulation Of Licensed Houses 

(1786), reprinted in Acts and Laws of the Commonwealth

of Massachusetts 209 (1893)). But laws obligating inns to

provide suitable lodging to all paying guests are not the 

same as laws subjecting inns to warrantless searches.

Petitioner also asserts that “[f]or a long time, [hotel] owners left their registers open to widespread inspection.” 

Brief for Petitioner 51. Setting aside that modern hotel 

registries contain sensitive information, such as driver’s

licenses and credit card numbers for which there is no 

historic analog, the fact that some hotels chose to make 

registries accessible to the public has little bearing on 

whether government authorities could have viewed these

documents on demand without a hotel’s consent. 

Even if we were to find that hotels are pervasively 

regulated, §41.49 would need to satisfy three additional

criteria to be reasonable under the Fourth Amendment: 

(1) “[T]here must be a ‘substantial’ government interest 

that informs the regulatory scheme pursuant to which the 

inspection is made”; (2) “the warrantless inspections must

be ‘necessary’ to further [the] regulatory scheme”; and (3) 

“the statute’s inspection program, in terms of the certainty

and regularity of its application, [must] provid[e] a constitutionally adequate substitute for a warrant.” Burger, 482 

U. S., at 702–703 (internal quotation marks omitted). We 

assume petitioner’s interest in ensuring that hotels maintain accurate and complete registries might fulfill the first 

of these requirements, but conclude that §41.49 fails the

second and third prongs of this test. 

The City claims that affording hotel operators any opportunity for precompliance review would fatally under-
 

 

Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 17 

Opinion of the Court 

mine the scheme’s efficacy by giving operators a chance to 

falsify their records. Brief for Petitioner 41–42. The 

Court has previously rejected this exact argument, which

could be made regarding any recordkeeping requirement.

See Barlow’s, Inc., 436 U. S., at 320 (“[It is not] apparent

why the advantages of surprise would be lost if, after 

being refused entry, procedures were available for the

[Labor] Secretary to seek an ex parte warrant to reappear

at the premises without further notice to the establishment being inspected”); cf. Lone Steer, 464 U. S., at 411, 

415 (affirming use of administrative subpoena which

provided an opportunity for precompliance review as a 

means for obtaining “payroll and sales records”). We see 

no reason to accept it here. 

As explained above, nothing in our decision today precludes an officer from conducting a surprise inspection by

obtaining an ex parte warrant or, where an officer reasonably suspects the registry would be altered, from guarding

the registry pending a hearing on a motion to quash. See 

Barlow’s, Inc., 436 U. S., at 319–321; Riley, 573 U. S., at 

___ (slip op., at 12). JUSTICE SCALIA’s claim that these 

procedures will prove unworkable given the large number 

of hotels in Los Angeles is a red herring. See post, at 11. 

While there are approximately 2,000 hotels in Los Angeles, ibid., there is no basis to believe that resort to such 

measures will be needed to conduct spot checks in the vast

majority of them. See supra, at 11. 

Section 41.49 is also constitutionally deficient under the

“certainty and regularity” prong of the closely regulated 

industries test because it fails sufficiently to constrain

police officers’ discretion as to which hotels to search and 

under what circumstances. While the Court has upheld 

inspection schemes of closely regulated industries that

called for searches at least four times a year, Dewey, 452 

U. S., at 604, or on a “regular basis,” Burger, 482 U. S., at 

711, §41.49 imposes no comparable standard. 
 

 

18 LOS ANGELES v. PATEL 

Opinion of the Court 

* * * 

For the foregoing reasons, we agree with the Ninth

Circuit that §41.49(3)(a) is facially invalid insofar as it 

fails to provide any opportunity for precompliance review 

before a hotel must give its guest registry to the police for 

inspection. Accordingly, the judgment of the Ninth Circuit 

is affirmed. 

It is so ordered. 
_________________ 

_________________ 

Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 1 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 13–1175 

CITY OF LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, PETITIONER 

v. NARANJIBHAI PATEL, ET AL. 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 

APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
 

[June 22, 2015] 

JUSTICE SCALIA, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and 

JUSTICE THOMAS join, dissenting. 

The city of Los Angeles, like many jurisdictions across

the country, has a law that requires motels, hotels, and 

other places of overnight accommodation (hereinafter 

motels) to keep a register containing specified information 

about their guests. Los Angeles Municipal Code (LAMC) 

§41.49(2) (2015). The purpose of this recordkeeping requirement is to deter criminal conduct, on the theory that 

criminals will be unwilling to carry on illicit activities in 

motel rooms if they must provide identifying information 

at check-in. Because this deterrent effect will only be

accomplished if motels actually do require guests to provide the required information, the ordinance also authorizes police to conduct random spot checks of motels’ guest 

registers to ensure that they are properly maintained. 

§41.49(3). The ordinance limits these spot checks to the 

four corners of the register, and does not authorize police 

to enter any nonpublic area of the motel. To the extent 

possible, police must conduct these spot checks at times 

that will minimize any disruption to a motel’s business.

The parties do not dispute the governmental interests at

stake. Motels not only provide housing to vulnerable

transient populations, they are also a particularly attractive site for criminal activity ranging from drug dealing 
 

 

2 LOS ANGELES v. PATEL 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

and prostitution to human trafficking. Offering privacy 

and anonymity on the cheap, they have been employed

as prisons for migrants smuggled across the border and 

held for ransom, see Sanchez, Immigrant Smugglers Become More Ruthless, Washington Post, June 28, 2004, 

p. A3; Wagner, Human Smuggling, Arizona Republic, 

July 23, 2006, p. A1, and rendezvous sites where child sex 

workers meet their clients on threat of violence from their 

procurers.

Nevertheless, the Court today concludes that Los Angeles’s ordinance is “unreasonable” inasmuch as it permits

police to flip through a guest register to ensure it is being 

filled out without first providing an opportunity for the

motel operator to seek judicial review. Because I believe 

that such a limited inspection of a guest register is eminently reasonable under the circumstances presented, I

dissent. 

I 

I assume that respondents may bring a facial challenge

to the City’s ordinance under the Fourth Amendment.

Even so, their claim must fail because, as discussed infra, 

the law is constitutional in most, if not all, of its applications. See United States v. Salerno, 481 U. S. 739, 751 

(1987). But because the Court discusses the propriety of a

facial challenge at some length, I offer a few thoughts. 

Article III limits our jurisdiction to “Cases” and “Controversies.” Accordingly, “[f]ederal courts may not ‘decide 

questions that cannot affect the rights of litigants in the

case before them’ or give ‘opinion[s] advising what the law

would be upon a hypothetical state of facts.’” Chafin v. 

Chafin, 568 U. S. ___, ___ (2013) (slip op., at 5). To be 

sure, the reasoning of a decision may suggest that there is 

no permissible application of a particular statute, Chicago 

v. Morales, 527 U. S. 41, 77 (1999) (SCALIA, J., dissenting), 

and under the doctrine of stare decisis, this reasoning—to 
Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 3 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

the extent that it is necessary to the holding—will be 

binding in all future cases. But in this sense, the facial 

invalidation of a statute is a logical consequence of the 

Court’s opinion, not the immediate effect of its judgment. 

Although we have at times described our holdings as 

invalidating a law, it is always the application of a law, 

rather than the law itself, that is before us. 

The upshot is that the effect of a given case is a function

not of the plaintiff ’s characterization of his challenge, but 

the narrowness or breadth of the ground that the Court 

relies upon in disposing of it. If a plaintiff elects not to 

present any case-specific facts in support of a claim that a 

law is unconstitutional—as is the case here—he will limit 

the grounds on which a Court may find for him to highly 

abstract rules that would have broad application in future 

cases. The decision to do this might be a poor strategic

move, especially in a Fourth Amendment case, where the 

reasonableness of a search is a highly factbound question

and general, abstract rules are hard to come by. Cf. 

Sibron v. New York, 392 U. S. 40, 59 (1968). But even had 

the plaintiffs in this case presented voluminous facts in a 

self-styled as-applied challenge, nothing would force this 

Court to rely upon those facts rather than the broader

principle that the Court has chosen to rely upon. I see no 

reason why a plaintiff ’s self-description of his challenge as 

facial would provide an independent reason to reject it

unless we were to delegate to litigants our duty to say

what the law is. 

II 

The Fourth Amendment provides, in relevant part, that

“[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, 

houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches

and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall 

issue, but upon probable cause.” Grammatically, the two

clauses of the Amendment seem to be independent—and 
 

 

 

4 LOS ANGELES v. PATEL 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

directed at entirely different actors. The former tells the 

executive what it must do when it conducts a search, and 

the latter tells the judiciary what it must do when it issues 

a search warrant. But in an effort to guide courts in applying the Search-and-Seizure Clause’s indeterminate 

reasonableness standard, and to maintain coherence in 

our case law, we have used the Warrant Clause as a 

guidepost for assessing the reasonableness of a search,

and have erected a framework of presumptions applicable 

to broad categories of searches conducted by executive

officials. Our case law has repeatedly recognized, however, that these are mere presumptions, and the only constitutional requirement is that a search be reasonable. 

When, for example, a search is conducted to enforce an 

administrative regime rather than to investigate criminal 

wrongdoing, we have been willing to modify the probablecause standard so that a warrant may issue absent individualized suspicion of wrongdoing. Thus, our cases say a 

warrant may issue to inspect a structure for fire-code 

violations on the basis of such factors as the passage of 

time, the nature of the building, and the condition of the 

neighborhood. Camara v. Municipal Court of City and 

County of San Francisco, 387 U. S. 523, 538–539 (1967).

As we recognized in that case, “reasonableness is still the 

ultimate standard. If a valid public interest justifies the 

intrusion contemplated, then there is probable cause to

issue a suitably restricted search warrant.” Id., at 539. 

And precisely “because the ultimate touchstone of the 

Fourth Amendment is ‘reasonableness,’” even the presumption that the search of a home without a warrant is 

unreasonable “is subject to certain exceptions.” Brigham 

City v. Stuart, 547 U. S. 398, 403 (2006). 

One exception to normal warrant requirements applies

to searches of closely regulated businesses. “[W]hen an

entrepreneur embarks upon such a business, he has voluntarily chosen to subject himself to a full arsenal of 
Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 5 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

governmental regulation,” and so a warrantless search to 

enforce those regulations is not unreasonable. Marshall v. 

Barlow’s, Inc., 436 U. S. 307, 313 (1978). Recognizing that

warrantless searches of closely regulated businesses may

nevertheless become unreasonable if arbitrarily conducted, 

we have required laws authorizing such searches to satisfy

three criteria: (1) There must be a “‘substantial’ government interest that informs the regulatory scheme pursuant to which the inspection is made”; (2) “the warrantless

inspections must be ‘necessary to further [the] regulatory

scheme’”; and (3) “‘the statute’s inspection program, in 

terms of the certainty and regularity of its application,

[must] provid[e] a constitutionally adequate substitute for 

a warrant.’” New York v. Burger, 482 U. S. 691, 702–703 

(1987).

Los Angeles’s ordinance easily meets these standards. 

A 

In determining whether a business is closely regulated,

this Court has looked to factors including the duration of 

the regulatory tradition, id., at 705–707, Colonnade Catering Corp. v. United States, 397 U. S. 72, 75–77 (1970), 

Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U. S. 594, 606 (1981); the comprehensiveness of the regulatory regime, Burger, supra, at 

704–705, Dewey, supra, at 606; and the imposition of 

similar regulations by other jurisdictions, Burger, supra, 

at 705. These factors are not talismans, but shed light on

the expectation of privacy the owner of a business may 

reasonably have, which in turn affects the reasonableness 

of a warrantless search. See Barlow’s, supra, at 313. 

Reflecting the unique public role of motels and their 

commercial forebears, governments have long subjected 

these businesses to unique public duties, and have established inspection regimes to ensure compliance. As Blackstone observed, “Inns, in particular, being intended for the 

lodging and receipt of travellers, may be indicted, sup-
 

6 LOS ANGELES v. PATEL 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

pressed, and the inn-keepers fined, if they refuse to entertain a traveller without a very sufficient cause: for thus to

frustrate the end of their institution is held to be disorderly

behavior.” 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws 

of England 168 (1765). Justice Story similarly recognized 

“[t]he soundness of the public policy of subjecting particular classes of persons to extraordinary responsibility, in 

cases where an extraordinary confidence is necessarily

reposed in them, and there is an extraordinary temptation

to fraud, or danger of plunder.” J. Story, Commentaries

on the Law of Bailments §464, pp. 487–488 (5th ed. 1851). 

Accordingly, in addition to the obligation to receive any 

paying guest, “innkeepers are bound to take, not merely 

ordinary care, but uncommon care, of the goods, money,

and baggage of their guests,” id., §470, at 495, as travellers “are obliged to rely almost implicitly on the good faith

of innholders, whose education and morals are none of the 

best, and who might have frequent opportunities of associating with ruffians and pilferers,” id., §471, at 498. 

These obligations were not merely aspirational. At the 

time of the founding, searches—indeed, warrantless 

searches—of inns and similar places of public accommodation were commonplace. For example, although Massachusetts was perhaps the State most protective against

government searches, “the state code of 1788 still allowed 

tithingmen to search public houses of entertainment on

every Sabbath without any sort of warrant.” W. Cuddihy, 

Fourth Amendment: Origins and Original Meaning 602–

1791, 743 (2009).1 

As this evidence demonstrates, the regulatory tradition 

governing motels is not only longstanding, but comprehen-

—————— 

1As Beale helpfully confirms, “[f ]rom the earliest times the fundamental characteristic of an inn has been its public nature. It is a public

house, a house of public entertainment, or, as it is legally phrased, a 

common inn.” J. Beale, The Law of Innkeepers and Hotels §11, p. 10 

(1906). 
 

 

Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 7 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

sive. And the tradition continues in Los Angeles. The 

City imposes an occupancy tax upon transients who stay 

in motels, LAMC §21.7.3, and makes the motel owner 

responsible for collecting it, §21.7.5. It authorizes city

officials “to enter [a motel], free of charge, during business

hours” in order to “inspect and examine” them to determine whether these tax provisions have been complied 

with. §§21.7.9, 21.15. It requires all motels to obtain a

“Transient Occupancy Registration Certificate,” which

must be displayed on the premises. §21.7.6. State law 

requires motels to “post in a conspicuous place . . . a 

statement of rate or range of rates by the day for lodging,”

and forbids any charges in excess of those posted rates. 

Cal. Civ. Code Ann. §1863 (West 2010). Hotels must 

change bed linens between guests, Cal. Code Regs., tit. 25,

§40 (2015), and they must offer guests the option not to

have towels and linens laundered daily, LAMC §121.08.

“Multiuse drinking utensils” may be placed in guest rooms 

only if they are “thoroughly washed and sanitized after 

each use” and “placed in protective bags.” Cal. Code Regs.,

tit. 17, §30852. And state authorities, like their municipal 

counterparts, “may at reasonable times enter and inspect 

any hotels, motels, or other public places” to ensure compliance. §30858. 

The regulatory regime at issue here is thus substantially more comprehensive than the regulations governing 

junkyards in Burger, where licensing, inventory-recording, 

and permit-posting requirements were found sufficient to

qualify the industry as closely regulated. 482 U. S., at 

704–705. The Court’s suggestion that these regulations

are not sufficiently targeted to motels, and are “akin to . . . 

minimum wage and maximum hour rules,” ante, at 15, is 

simply false. The regulations we have described above

reach into the “minutest detail[s]” of motel operations, 

Barlow’s, supra, at 314, and those who enter that business 

today (like those who have entered it over the centuries) 
 

8 LOS ANGELES v. PATEL 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

do so with an expectation that they will be subjected to 

especially vigilant governmental oversight.

Finally, this ordinance is not an outlier. The City has 

pointed us to more than 100 similar register-inspection 

laws in cities and counties across the country, Brief for 

Petitioner 36, and n. 3, and that is far from exhaustive. In 

all, municipalities in at least 41 States have laws similar 

to Los Angeles’s, Brief for National League of Cities et al. 

as Amici Curiae 16–17, and at least 8 States have their 

own laws authorizing register inspections, Brief for California et al. as Amici Curiae 12–13. 

This copious evidence is surely enough to establish that

“[w]hen a [motel operator] chooses to engage in this pervasively regulated business . . . he does so with the 

knowledge that his business records . . . will be subject to

effective inspection.” United States v. Biswell, 406 U. S. 

311, 316 (1972). And that is the relevant constitutional 

test—not whether this regulatory superstructure is “the

same as laws subjecting inns to warrantless searches,” or 

whether, as an historical matter, government authorities

not only required these documents to be kept but permitted them to be viewed on demand without a motel’s consent. Ante, at 16. 

The Court’s observation that “[o]ver the past 45 years, 

the Court has identified only four industries” as closely 

regulated, ante, at 14, is neither here nor there. Since we 

first concluded in Colonnade Catering that warrantless 

searches of closely regulated businesses are reasonable, 

we have only identified one industry as not closely regulated, see Barlow’s, 436 U. S., at 313–314. The Court’s 

statistic thus tells us more about how this Court exercises 

its discretionary review than it does about the number of 

industries that qualify as closely regulated. At the same 

time, lower courts, which do not have the luxury of picking

the cases they hear, have identified many more businesses 

as closely regulated under the test we have announced: 
 

Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 9 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

pharmacies, United States v. Gonsalves, 435 F. 3d 64, 67 

(CA1 2006); massage parlors, Pollard v. Cockrell, 578 

F. 2d 1002, 1014 (CA5 1978); commercial-fishing operations, United States v. Raub, 637 F. 2d 1205, 1208–1209 

(CA9 1980); day-care facilities, Rush v. Obledo, 756 F. 2d 

713, 720–721 (CA9 1985); nursing homes, People v. Firstenberg, 92 Cal. App. 3d 570, 578–580, 155 Cal. Rptr. 80, 

84–86 (1979); jewelers, People v. Pashigian, 150 Mich. 

App. 97, 100–101, 388 N. W. 2d 259, 261–262 (1986) (per 

curiam); barbershops, Stogner v. Kentucky, 638 F. Supp. 1,

3 (WD Ky. 1985); and yes, even rabbit dealers, Lesser v. 

Espy, 34 F. 3d 1301, 1306–1307 (CA7 1994). Like automobile junkyards and catering companies that serve alcohol, many of these businesses are far from “intrinsically 

dangerous,” cf. ante, at 14, n. 5. This should come as no 

surprise. The reason closely regulated industries may be 

searched without a warrant has nothing to do with the

risk of harm they pose; rather, it has to do with the expectations of those who enter such a line of work. See Barlow’s, supra, at 313. 

B 

The City’s ordinance easily satisfies the remaining 

Burger requirements: It furthers a substantial governmental interest, it is necessary to achieving that interest,

and it provides an adequate substitute for a search 

warrant. 

Neither respondents nor the Court question the substantial interest of the City in deterring criminal activity.

See Brief for Respondents 34–41; ante, at 15. The private 

pain and public costs imposed by drug dealing, prostitution, and human trafficking are beyond contention, and 

motels provide an obvious haven for those who trade in 

human misery. 

Warrantless inspections are also necessary to advance

this interest. Although the Court acknowledges that law 
 

10 LOS ANGELES v. PATEL 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

enforcement can enter a motel room without a warrant 

when exigent circumstances exist, see ante, at 13, n. 4, the 

whole reason criminals use motel rooms in the first place 

is that they offer privacy and secrecy, so that police will 

never come to discover these exigencies. The recordkeeping requirement, which all parties admit is permissible, 

therefore operates by deterring crime. Criminals, who 

depend on the anonymity that motels offer, will balk when

confronted with a motel’s demand that they produce identification. And a motel’s evasion of the recordkeeping

requirement fosters crime. In San Diego, for example, 

motel owners were indicted for collaborating with members of the Crips street gang in the prostitution of underage girls; the motel owners “set aside rooms apart from

the rest of their legitimate customers where girls and

women were housed, charged the gang members/pimps a

higher rate for the rooms where ‘dates’ or ‘tricks’ took

place, and warned the gang members of inquiries by law 

enforcement.” Office of the Attorney General, Cal. Dept. of

Justice, The State of Human Trafficking in California 25

(2012). The warrantless inspection requirement provides

a necessary incentive for motels to maintain their registers thoroughly and accurately: They never know when

law enforcement might drop by to inspect.

Respondents and the Court acknowledge that inspections are necessary to achieve the purposes of the recordkeeping regime, but insist that warrantless inspections are 

not. They have to acknowledge, however, that the motel

operators who conspire with drug dealers and procurers 

may demand precompliance judicial review simply as a

pretext to buy time for making fraudulent entries in their 

guest registers. The Court therefore must resort to arguing that warrantless inspections are not “necessary” because other alternatives exist. 

The Court suggests that police could obtain an administrative subpoena to search a guest register and, if a motel 
 

 

Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 11 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

moves to quash, the police could “guar[d] the registry

pending a hearing” on the motion. Ante, at 17. This proposal is equal parts 1984 and Alice in Wonderland. It 

protects motels from government inspection of their registers by authorizing government agents to seize the registers2 (if “guarding” entails forbidding the register to be 

moved) or to upset guests by a prolonged police presence

at the motel. The Court also notes that police can obtain 

an ex parte warrant before conducting a register inspection. Ante, at 17. Presumably such warrants could issue 

without probable cause of wrongdoing by a particular 

motel, see Camara, 387 U. S., at 535–536; otherwise, this 

would be no alternative at all. Even so, under this regime

police would have to obtain an ex parte warrant before 

every inspection. That is because law enforcement would 

have no way of knowing ahead of time which motels would 

refuse consent to a search upon request; and if they wait

to obtain a warrant until consent is refused, motels will 

have the opportunity to falsify their guest registers while 

the police jump through the procedural hoops required to 

obtain a warrant. It is quite plausible that the costs of 

this always-get-a-warrant “alternative” would be prohibitive for a police force in one of America’s largest cities, 

juggling numerous law-enforcement priorities, and confronting more than 2,000 motels within its jurisdiction.

E. Wallace, K. Pollock, B. Horth, S. Carty, & N. Elyas, Los Angeles Tourism: A Domestic and International Analysis 7 (May 2014 online at http:

//www.lachamber.com/clientuploads/Global_Programs/

WTW/2014/LATourism_LMU_May2014.pdf (as visited 

June 19, 2015, and available in Clerk of Court’s 

—————— 

2We are not at all “baffled at the idea that . . . police officers may

seize something that they cannot immediately search.” Ante, at 12, 

n. 3. We are baffled at the idea that anyone would think a seizure of 

required records less intrusive than a visual inspection. 
 

12 LOS ANGELES v. PATEL 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

case file). To be sure, the fact that obtaining a warrant

might be costly will not by itself render a warrantless 

search reasonable under the Fourth Amendment; but it 

can render a warrantless search necessary in the context 

of an administrative-search regime governing closely

regulated businesses.

But all that discussion is in any case irrelevant. The 

administrative search need only be reasonable. It is not 

the burden of Los Angeles to show that there are no less 

restrictive means of achieving the City’s purposes. Sequestration or ex parte warrants were possible alternatives 

to the warrantless search regimes approved by this Court

in Colonnade Catering, Biswell, Dewey, and Burger. By

importing a least-restrictive-means test into Burger’s 

Fourth Amendment framework, today’s opinion implicitly 

overrules that entire line of cases. 

Finally, the City’s ordinance provides an adequate 

substitute for a warrant. Warrants “advise the owner of 

the scope and objects of the search, beyond which limits 

the inspector is not expected to proceed.” Barlow’s, 436 

U. S., at 323. Ultimately, they aim to protect against 

“devolv[ing] almost unbridled discretion upon executive

and administrative officers, particularly those in the field, 

as to when to search and whom to search.” Ibid. 

Los Angeles’s ordinance provides that the guest register

must be kept in the guest reception or guest check-in area,

or in an adjacent office, and that it “be made available to

any officer of the Los Angeles Police Department for inspection. Whenever possible, the inspection shall be conducted at a time and in a manner that minimizes any 

interference with the operation of the business.” LAMC 

§41.49(3). Nothing in the ordinance authorizes law enforcement to enter a nonpublic part of the motel. Compare

this to the statute upheld in Colonnade Catering, which 

provided that “‘[t]he Secretary or his delegate may enter,

in the daytime, any building or place where any articles or 
Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 13 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

objects subject to tax are made, produced, or kept, so far as

it may be necessary for the purpose of examining said 

articles or objects,’” 397 U. S., at 73, n. 2 (quoting 26 

U. S. C. §7606(a) (1964 ed.)); or the one in Biswell, which 

stated that “‘[t]he Secretary may enter during business

hours the premises (including places of storage) of any 

firearms or ammunition importer . . . for the purpose of 

inspecting or examining (1) any records or documents 

required to be kept . . . , and (2) any firearms or ammunition kept or stored,’” 406 U. S., at 312, n. 1 (quoting 18

U. S. C. §923(g) (1970 ed.)); or the one in Dewey, which 

granted federal mine inspectors “‘a right of entry to, upon,

or through any coal or other mine,’” 452 U. S., at 596 

(quoting 30 U. S. C. §813(a) (1976 ed., Supp. III)); or the

one in Burger, which compelled junkyard operators to 

“‘produce such records and permit said agent or police 

officer to examine them and any vehicles or parts of vehicles which are subject to the record keeping requirements 

of this section and which are on the premises,’” 482 U. S.,

at 694, n. 1 (quoting N. Y. Veh. & Traf. Law §415–a5 

(McKinney 1986)). The Los Angeles ordinance—which

limits warrantless police searches to the pages of a guest 

register in a public part of a motel—circumscribes police 

discretion in much more exacting terms than the laws we 

have approved in our earlier cases.

The Court claims that Los Angeles’s ordinance confers

too much discretion because it does not adequately limit

the frequency of searches. Without a trace of irony, the 

Court tries to distinguish Los Angeles’s law from the laws

upheld in Dewey and Burger by pointing out that the 

latter regimes required inspections at least four times a

year and on a “ ‘regular basis,’” respectively. Ante, at 17. 

But the warrantless police searches of a business “10

times a day, every day, for three months” that the Court

envisions under Los Angeles’s regime, ante, at 11, are 

entirely consistent with the regimes in Dewey and Burger; 
 

14 LOS ANGELES v. PATEL 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

10 times a day, every day, is “at least four times a year,”

and on a (much too) “‘regular basis.’” Ante, at 17. 

That is not to say that the Court’s hypothetical searches 

are necessarily constitutional. It is only to say that Los

Angeles’s ordinance presents no greater risk that such a

hypothetical will materialize than the laws we have already upheld. As in our earlier cases, we should leave it to 

lower courts to consider on a case-by-case basis whether 

warrantless searches have been conducted in an unreasonably intrusive or harassing manner. 

III 

The Court reaches its wrongheaded conclusion not 

simply by misapplying our precedent, but by mistaking 

our precedent for the Fourth Amendment itself. Rather 

than bother with the text of that Amendment, the Court 

relies exclusively on our administrative-search cases, 

Camara, See v. Seattle, 387 U. S. 541 (1967), and Barlow’s. 

But the Constitution predates 1967, and it remains the

supreme law of the land today. Although the categorical 

framework our jurisprudence has erected in this area may 

provide us guidance, it is guidance to answer the constitutional question at issue: whether the challenged search is 

reasonable. 

An administrative, warrantless-search ordinance that 

narrowly limits the scope of searches to a single business

record, that does not authorize entry upon premises not

open to the public, and that is supported by the need to 

prevent fabrication of guest registers, is, to say the least, 

far afield from the laws at issue in the cases the Court 

relies upon. The Court concludes that such minor intrusions, permissible when the police are trying to tamp down 

the market in stolen auto parts, are “unreasonable” when

police are instead attempting to stamp out the market in

child sex slaves. 

Because I believe that the limited warrantless searches 
Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 15 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

authorized by Los Angeles’s ordinance are reasonable 

under the circumstances, I respectfully dissent. 
_________________ 

_________________ 

 

 

Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 1 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 13–1175 

CITY OF LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, PETITIONER 

v. NARANJIBHAI PATEL, ET AL. 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 

APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
 

[June 22, 2015] 

JUSTICE ALITO, with whom JUSTICE THOMAS joins,

dissenting. 

After today, the city of Los Angeles can never, under any

circumstances, enforce its 116-year-old requirement that 

hotels make their registers available to police officers. 

That is because the Court holds that §41.49(3)(a) of the 

Los Angeles Municipal Code (2015) is facially unconstitutional. Before entering a judgment with such serious

safety and federalism implications, the Court must conclude that every application of this law is unconstitutional—i.e., that “‘no set of circumstances exists under 

which the [law] would be valid.’” Ante, at 7 (quoting United 

States v. Salerno, 481 U. S. 739, 745 (1987)). I have 

doubts about the Court’s approach to administrative

searches and closely regulated industries. Ante, at 9–17. 

But even if the Court were 100% correct, it still should 

uphold §41.49(3)(a) because many other applications of 

this law are constitutional. Here are five examples. 

Example One. The police have probable cause to believe

that a register contains evidence of a crime. They go to a 

judge and get a search warrant. The hotel operator, however, refuses to surrender the register, but instead stashes

it away. Officers could tear the hotel apart looking for it.

Or they could simply order the operator to produce it. The 

Fourth Amendment does not create a right to defy a war-
 

 

 

2 LOS ANGELES v. PATEL 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

rant. Hence §41.49(3)(a) could be constitutionally applied 

in this scenario. Indeed, the Court concedes that it is 

proper to apply a California obstruction of justice law in

such a case. See ante, at 8–9, n. 1; Brief for Respondents 

49. How could applying a city law with a similar effect be 

different? No one thinks that overlapping laws are unconstitutional. See, e.g., Yates v. United States, 574 U. S. ___, 

___ (2015) (KAGAN, J. dissenting) (slip op., at 10–11) 

(“Overlap—even significant overlap—abounds in criminal

law”) (collecting citations). And a specific law gives more 

notice than a general law.

In any event, the Los Angeles ordinance is arguably 

broader in at least one important respect than the California obstruction of justice statute on which the Court relies. 

Ante, at 8–9, n. 1. The state law applies when a person

“willfully resists, delays, or obstructs any public officer . . . 

in the discharge or attempt to discharge any duty of his or 

her office.” Cal. Penal Code Ann. §148(a)(1) (West 2014).

In the example set out above, suppose that the hotel operator, instead of hiding the register, simply refused to tell

the police where it is located. The Court cites no California case holding that such a refusal would be unlawful,

and the city of Los Angeles submits that under California

law, “[o]bstruction statutes prohibit a hotel owner from 

obstructing a search, but they do not require affirmative 

assistance.” Reply Brief 5. The Los Angeles ordinance, by

contrast, unequivocally requires a hotel operator to make

the register available on request.

Example Two. A murderer has kidnapped a woman

with the intent to rape and kill her and there is reason to

believe he is holed up in a certain motel. The Fourth 

Amendment’s reasonableness standard accounts for exigent circumstances. See, e.g., Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 

U. S. 398, 403 (2006). When the police arrive, the motel

operator folds her arms and says the register is locked in a 

safe. Invoking §41.49(3)(a), the police order the operator 
Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 3 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

to turn over the register. She refuses. 

Amendment does not protect her from arrest. 

The Fourth 

Example Three. A neighborhood of “pay by the hour”

motels is a notorious gathering spot for child-sex traffickers. Police officers drive through the neighborhood late

one night and see unusual amounts of activity at a particular motel. The officers stop and ask the motel operator

for the names of those who paid with cash to rent rooms

for less than three hours. The operator refuses to provide

the information. Requesting to see the register—and

arresting the operator for failing to provide it—would be 

reasonable under the “totality of the circumstances.” Ohio 

v. Robinette, 519 U. S. 33, 39 (1996). In fact, the Court has 

upheld a similar reporting duty against a Fourth Amendment challenge where the scope of information required 

was also targeted and the public’s interest in crime prevention was no less serious. See California Bankers Assn. 

v. Shultz, 416 U. S. 21, 39, n. 15, 66–67 (1974) (having “no

difficulty” upholding a requirement that banks must 

provide reports about transactions involving more than 

$10,000, including the name, address, occupation, and 

social security number of the customer involved, along

with a summary of the transaction, the amount of money

at issue, and the type of identification presented). 

Example Four. A motel is operated by a dishonest 

employee. He has been charging more for rooms than he 

records, all the while pocketing the difference. The owner 

finds out and eagerly consents to a police inspection of the

register. But when officers arrive and ask to see the register, the operator hides it. The Fourth Amendment does 

not allow the operator’s refusal to defeat the owner’s 

consent. See, e.g., Mancusi v. DeForte, 392 U. S. 364, 369– 

370 (1968). Accordingly, it would not violate the Fourth

Amendment to arrest the operator for failing to make the 

register “available to any officer of the Los Angeles Police 

Department for inspection.” §41.49(3)(a). 
 

 

4 LOS ANGELES v. PATEL 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

Example Five. A “mom and pop” motel always keeps its

old-fashioned guest register open on the front desk. Anyone who wants to can walk up and leaf through it. (Such

motels are not as common as they used to be, but Los

Angeles is a big place.) The motel has no reasonable 

expectation of privacy in the register, and no one doubts 

that police officers—like anyone else—can enter into the 

lobby. See, e.g., Florida v. Jardines, 569 U. S. 1, ___ 

(2013) (slip op., at 6); Donovan v. Lone Steer, Inc., 464 

U. S. 408, 413 (1984). But when an officer starts looking 

at the register, as others do, the motel operator at the desk 

snatches it away and will not give it back. Arresting that

person would not violate the Fourth Amendment.

These are just five examples. There are many more. 

The Court rushes past examples like these by suggesting 

that §41.49(3)(a) does no “work” in such scenarios. Ante, 

at 8. That is not true. Under threat of legal sanction, this 

law orders hotel operators to do things they do not want to

do. To be sure, there may be circumstances in which

§41.49(3)(a)’s command conflicts with the Fourth Amendment, and in those circumstances the Fourth Amendment 

is supreme. See U. S. Const., Art VI, cl. 2. But no different from any other local law, the remedy for such circumstances should be an as-applied injunction limited to the 

conflict with the Fourth Amendment. Such an injunction 

would protect a hotel from being “searched 10 times a day, 

every day, for three months, without any violation being 

found.” Ante, at 11. But unlike facial invalidation, an asapplied injunction does not produce collateral damage.

Section 41.49(3)(a) should be enforceable in those many

cases in which the Fourth Amendment is not violated. 

There are serious arguments that the Fourth Amendment’s application to warrantless searches and seizures is 

inherently inconsistent with facial challenges. See Sibron 

v. New York, 392 U. S. 40, 59, 62 (1968) (explaining that

because of the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness re-
Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 5 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

quirement, “[t]he constitutional validity of a warrantless 

search is pre-eminently the sort of question which can only 

be decided in the concrete factual context of the individual 

case”); Brief for Manhattan Institute for Policy Research 

as Amicus Curiae 33 (“A constitutional claim under the 

first clause of the Fourth Amendment is never a ‘facial’ 

challenge, because it is always and inherently a challenge 

to executive action”). But assuming such facial challenges

ever make sense conceptually, this particular one fails 

under basic principles of facial invalidation. The Court’s 

contrary holding is befuddling. I respectfully dissent.