Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 397.0

529US1

Unit: $U42

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322

ERIE v. PAP’S A. M.

Stevens, J., dissenting

them altogether.
In striking down that law, we focused pre-
cisely on that distinction, holding that the secondary effects
analysis endorsed in the past did not apply to an ordinance
that totally banned nude dancing: “The restriction [in Young
v. American Mini Theatres] did not affect the number of
adult movie theaters that could operate in the city; it merely
dispersed them. The Court did not imply that a municipal-
ity could ban all adult theaters—much less all live entertain-
ment or all nude dancing—from its commercial districts city-
wide.”
Id., at 71 (plurality opinion); see also id., at 76; id.,
at 77 (Blackmun, J., concurring) ( joining plurality); id., at 79
(Powell, J., concurring) (same).

The reason we have limited our secondary effects cases to
zoning and declined to extend their reasoning to total bans
is clear and straightforward: A dispersal that simply limits
the places where speech may occur is a minimal imposition,
whereas a total ban is the most exacting of restrictions.
The State’s interest in ﬁghting presumed secondary effects
is sufﬁciently strong to justify the former, but far too weak
to support the latter, more severe burden.5 Yet it is per-
fectly clear that in the present case—to use Justice Powell’s
metaphor in American Mini Theatres—the city of Erie has
totally silenced a message the dancers at Kandyland want to
convey. The fact that this censorship may have a laudable
ulterior purpose cannot mean that censorship is not censor-
ship. For these reasons, the Court’s holding rejects the ex-
plicit reasoning in American Mini Theatres and Renton and
the express holding in Schad.

The Court’s use of the secondary effects rationale to per-
mit a total ban has grave implications for basic free speech
principles. Ordinarily, laws regulating the primary effects
of speech, i. e., the intended persuasive effects caused by the

5 As the plurality recognizes by quoting my opinion in Young v. Ameri-
can Mini Theatres, Inc., 427 U. S. 50, 70 (1976), see ante, at 294, “the First
Amendment will not tolerate the total suppression of erotic materials that
have some artistic value,” though it will permit zoning regulations.