Title: College Art Theatres, Inc. v. State Ex Rel. DeCarlo
Citation: 476 So. 2d 40
Docket Number: N/A
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: June 28, 1985

476 So. 2d 40 (1985)
COLLEGE ART THEATRES, INC., a Corporation
v.
STATE of Alabama, ex rel. John Paul DeCARLO, District Attorney for the Tenth Judicial Circuit of Alabama.[1]
ANWAR ENTERPRISES, INC., a Corporation, d/b/a Birmingham Adult Books
v.
STATE of Alabama, ex rel. John Paul DeCARLO, District Attorney for the Tenth Judicial Circuit of Alabama.
83-401, 83-402.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
June 28, 1985.
Rehearing Denied August 30, 1985.
*41 Ferris S. Ritchey, Jr., of Ritchey &amp; Ritchey, Birmingham, for appellants.
John Paul DeCarlo, Dist. Atty., pro se.
PER CURIAM.
These two cases arise under the Alabama Red Light Abatement Act, Code 1975, § 6-5-140, et seq. After finding that defendants permitted and effectively encouraged their patrons' lewd conduct in their adult motion picture theaters, the trial court granted permanent injunctions prohibiting defendants from operating their premises as motion picture theaters or exhibiting motion pictures, but permitting them to operate any other lawful business. The defendants argue that this injunction constitutes an impermissible prior restraint of their right to free expression protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
College Art Theatres, Inc., exhibits sexually explicit motion pictures at its theater in Birmingham. In the year prior to July 11, 1983, when the trial court entered a preliminary injunction in this matter, Birmingham police officers witnessed 39 incidents of sexual misconduct in College Art's theater. The trial court made the following findings regarding these incidents and the management's attitude toward them:
Anwar Enterprises, Inc., operates a bookstore selling erotic materials. In the rear of Anwar's place of business are "movie rooms" with coin-operated projectors showing sexually explicit movies. There are ten of these rooms or booths along a hallway leading from the book and magazine portion of the store.
The court enjoined both defendants from conducting a movie theater or exhibiting motion pictures. It ordered Anwar Enterprises to bar access by the public to the portion of its premises where the movie booths are located, and ordered the sheriff to sell the personal property inventoried under the provisions of § 6-5-151(a). The court specifically allowed both defendants to conduct any business not enjoined by the judgment.
*44 The state, under its police power, has the authority to abate nuisances offensive to the public health, welfare, and morals. A business which allows lewd conduct on its premises may constitute such a nuisance. Flamingo Club of Dothan, Inc., 387 So. 2d 132 (Ala.1980); Ellwest Stereo Theatres, Inc. v. State ex rel. Parsons, 371 So. 2d 1 (Ala.1979); General Corporation v. State ex rel. Sweeton, 294 Ala. 657, 320 So. 2d 668, cert. denied, 425 U.S. 904, 96 S. Ct. 1494, 47 L. Ed. 2d 753 (1975). The state has greater power to regulate nonverbal conduct than descriptions or depictions of the same behavior. Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 93 S. Ct. 2607, 37 L. Ed. 2d 419 (1973); California v. LaRue, 409 U.S. 109, 93 S. Ct. 390, 34 L. Ed. 2d 342 (1972); United States v. O'Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 88 S. Ct. 1673, 20 L. Ed. 2d 672 (1968).
We agree with the trial court that these injunctions of the nuisances maintained by defendants do not infringe upon the defendants' First Amendment rights of freedom of expression. This is not a case of prior restraint of exhibition of allegedly obscene materials. It matters not what movies were showing at defendants' premises. What matters is that defendants used their operation of motion picture theaters as a reason to draw customers who then used the premises as a haven for illegal sexual activity. Defendants might as well have operated a brothel.
Because operation of a movie theater necessarily entails providing a darkened place where people gather, the trial court's injunction is a permissible means by which to abate the nuisance. The defendants have demonstrated their indifference to the indecent and illegal conduct of the patrons of their darkened hallway and theater to the extent that such conduct became an integral part of the amenities for which patrons were paying an admission charge. The enjoining of such business is well within the purpose of the Red Light Abatement Act.
The trial court properly distinguished these cases from its decisions which we have affirmed in State ex rel. DeCarlo v. Tomkat, Inc., 469 So. 2d 577 (Ala.1985) and State ex rel. DeCarlo v. Pleasure Books East, Inc., [Ms. June 28, 1985] (Ala.1985). In those cases, the trial court made sustainable findings that the defendants had made bona fide efforts to prevent lewd conduct on their premises and that any such conduct was not extensive nor necessarily related to the defendants' manner of conducting their businesses. In these cases, the defendants have not even designated the transcripts of the trials as part of the record on appeal, choosing instead to accept the trial court's findings for the sake of their arguments that the trial court's injunctions violate their First Amendment rights as a matter of law.
The judgments of the trial court are affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
FAULKNER, ALMON, EMBRY, BEATTY and ADAMS, JJ., concur.
[1]  The Court notes that while this appeal was pending, District Attorney DeCarlo's term expired and he was succeeded by David Barber. See Rule 43(b), A.R.A.P.