Opinion ID: 377140
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Simple License Requirement

Text: 17 The Peoria ordinance makes it unlawful for anyone to operate an adult bookstore in Peoria without first obtaining a license. 19 To obtain a license, the applicant must pay a $100 fee and satisfy many other conditions as well. Plaintiffs contend, first, that the requirement of a license is in itself an invalid prior restraint under the First Amendment, and, second, that various conditions imposed are invalid. Because the license requirement is applicable to the adult bookstores of the owner plaintiffs, standing requirements are satisfied. 18 We have held in Part V of this opinion, supra, that the zoning provisions that relate to separation of adult uses are constitutional. Therefore, under Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc., supra, 427 U.S. at 62-63, 96 S.Ct. at 2448, the requirement of a license is also constitutional. It is rationally related to the goal of inverse, or scatter zoning of adult uses; it provides both a method for authorities to enforce scatter zoning and a means of assuring those who seek to open a new adult use of the legality of the proposed site. The procedural delay that the licensing provision occasions is limited by the terms of the ordinance and is not argued to be excessive in relation to its end. 20 19 Plaintiffs argue, however, that Young dealt only with a requirement of a license for adult movie theaters; they contend that, while a license may sometimes properly be required of a movie theater, bookstores may never be subjected to such a requirement. Some support can be found in opinions of the Supreme Court for the proposition that, under the First Amendment, state regulation of movie theaters may go further than state regulation of bookstores. 21 It may be, thus, that the licensing of a bookstore is inherently more suspect than is the licensing of a movie theater. The reasoning that underlies Young, however, is that cities may use zoning to break up congregations of adult uses that would otherwise cause urban blight. 22 Young acknowledges that the zoning power cannot be used as a tool to suppress or restrict speech, 23 but nothing in the opinions in Young indicates that the zoning of bookstores should be viewed as more restrictive than the zoning of movie theaters. Moreover, nothing in the record of this case or in common experience would warrant this court in concluding that adult bookstores contribute less than other forms of adult use to the injurious neighborhood effects that may stem from a congregation of adult uses. The decline in property values and the general deterioration of a neighborhood that flows from such a congregation would seem to follow equally from congregations that contain adult bookstores, adult movie theaters, or other adult uses that bear little or no relationship to First Amendment concerns. Given this, and given also the fact that the distinction between print and film media is, for First Amendment purposes, not large, 24 we think bookstores are subject to the same rule that governs movie theaters as to the issue in dispute. We therefore find that the license requirement is not rendered unconstitutional by its coverage of bookstores as well as movie theaters and other adult uses. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court that the requirement that an adult bookstore obtain a license is valid.