Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 370.0

529US1

Unit: $U42

[10-11-01 11:58:08] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 529 U. S. 277 (2000)

295

Opinion of O’Connor, J.

sound-ampliﬁcation guideline is the city’s desire to control
noise levels at bandshell events, in order to retain the char-
acter of the [adjacent] Sheep Meadow and its more sedate
activities,” and citing Renton for the proposition that “[a]
regulation that serves purposes unrelated to the content of
expression is deemed neutral, even if it has an incidental
effect on some speakers or messages but not others”).
While the doctrinal theories behind “incidental burdens” and
“secondary effects” are, of course, not identical, there is noth-
ing objectionable about a city passing a general ordinance to
ban public nudity (even though such a ban may place inciden-
tal burdens on some protected speech) and at the same time
recognizing that one speciﬁc occurrence of public nudity—
nude erotic dancing—is particularly problematic because it
produces harmful secondary effects.

Justice Stevens claims that today we “[f]or the ﬁrst
time” extend Renton’s secondary effects doctrine to justify
restrictions other than the location of a commercial enter-
prise. Post, at 317 (dissenting opinion). Our reliance on
Renton to justify other restrictions is not new, however.
In
Ward, the Court relied on Renton to evaluate restrictions on
sound ampliﬁcation at an outdoor bandshell, rejecting the
dissent’s contention that Renton was inapplicable. See
Ward v. Rock Against Racism, supra, at 804, n. 1 (Marshall,
J., dissenting) (“Today, for the ﬁrst time, a majority of the
Court applies Renton analysis to a category of speech far
aﬁeld from that decision’s original limited focus”). More-
over, Erie’s ordinance does not effect a “total ban” on pro-
tected expression. Post, at 319.

In Renton, the regulation explicitly treated “adult” movie
theaters differently from other theaters, and deﬁned “adult”
theaters solely by reference to the content of their movies.
475 U. S., at 44. We nonetheless treated the zoning regula-
tion as content neutral because the ordinance was aimed at
the secondary effects of adult theaters, a justiﬁcation unre-
Id., at
lated to the content of the adult movies themselves.