Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 354.0

529US1

Unit: $U42

[10-11-01 11:58:07] PAGES PGT: OPIN

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

279

Syllabus

nudity that contains an erotic message; rather, it bans all public nudity,
regardless of whether that nudity is accompanied by expressive activity.
Although Pap’s contends that the ordinance is related to the suppression
of expression because its preamble suggests that its actual purpose is
to prohibit erotic dancing of the type performed at Kandyland, that is
not how the Pennsylvania Supreme Court interpreted that language.
Rather, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court construed the preamble to
mean that one purpose of the ordinance was to combat negative second-
ary effects. That is, the ordinance is aimed at combating crime and
other negative secondary effects caused by the presence of adult enter-
tainment establishments like Kandyland, and not at suppressing the
erotic message conveyed by this type of nude dancing. See 391 U. S.,
at 382; see also Boos v. Barry, 485 U. S. 312, 321. The Pennsylvania
Supreme Court’s ultimate conclusion that the ordinance was neverthe-
less content based relied on Justice White’s position in dissent in Barnes
that a ban of this type necessarily has the purpose of suppressing the
erotic message of the dance. That view was rejected by a majority of
the Court in Barnes, and is here rejected again. Pap’s argument that
the ordinance is “aimed” at suppressing expression through a ban on
nude dancing is really an argument that Erie also had an illicit motive
in enacting the ordinance. However, this Court will not strike down an
otherwise constitutional statute on the basis of an alleged illicit motive.
O’Brien, supra, at 382–383. Even if Erie’s public nudity ban has some
minimal effect on the erotic message by muting that portion of the ex-
pression that occurs when the last stitch is dropped, the dancers at Kan-
dyland and other such establishments are free to perform wearing past-
ies and G-strings. Any effect on the overall expression is therefore de
minimis.
If States are to be able to regulate secondary effects, then
such de minimis intrusions on expression cannot be sufﬁcient to render
the ordinance content based. See, e. g., Clark v. Community for Cre-
ative Non-Violence, 468 U. S. 288, 299. Thus, Erie’s ordinance is valid
if it satisﬁes the O’Brien test. Pp. 289–296.

2. Erie’s ordinance satisﬁes O’Brien’s four-factor test. First, the or-
dinance is within Erie’s constitutional power to enact because the city’s
efforts to protect public health and safety are clearly within its police
powers. Second, the ordinance furthers the important government in-
terests of regulating conduct through a public nudity ban and of combat-
ing the harmful secondary effects associated with nude dancing.
In
terms of demonstrating that such secondary effects pose a threat, the
city need not conduct new studies or produce evidence independent of
that already generated by other cities, so long as the evidence relied on
is reasonably believed to be relevant to the problem addressed. Renton
v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 U. S. 41, 51–52. Erie could reasonably