Opinion ID: 1358803
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Commercial Activity or Speech?

Text: The City contends the ordinance is a valid regulation of a commercial activity because it prohibits fortunetelling only for consideration. The City relies on Azusa Municipal Code section 5.21.010 et seq., which permit solicitation of general contributions for religious purposes, and specifically authorize solicitation of gifts from legitimate church members at assemblies, services or otherwise. The City asserts that Stevens may practice fortunetelling and may solicit funds for her church's religious activities; what she cannot do is engage in the business of telling fortunes for money or other consideration. Thus it is contended that the ordinance regulates not speech but commercial activity, and does so validly. As support for its position, the City cites In re Bartha (1976) 63 Cal. App.3d 584 [134 Cal. Rptr. 39, 91 A.L.R.3d 759]. In that case the defendant was convicted of violating Los Angeles Municipal Code section 43.30, which prohibited advertising or engaging in the telling of fortunes and related activities. The defendant insisted that she was a priestess of Wicca, the religion of witchcraft, and that the Los Angeles ordinance unconstitutionally interfered with the practice of her religion and restricted her freedom of speech. The Court of Appeal cited Los Angeles Municipal Code section 43.31, which exempts from section 43.30 any legitimate religious practices, and emphasized that the jury had been instructed that in order to convict it must find the defendant's fortunetelling to be a business, not a religious practice. Since the jury found a violation, the appellate court deemed the defendant's activity to be a business, subject to regulation: The constitutional right to freedom of speech does not prevent the Legislature from regulating or prohibiting commercial enterprises which are harmful to the public welfare. ( Id., at p. 591.) We are unable to subscribe to Bartha's broad characterization of fortunetelling as an exclusively commercial activity, and to the theory that it therefore can be indiscriminately regulated, or, in this instance, wholly prohibited. (1) The essence of the issue whether an activity falls within the constitutional protection of speech is whether the speaker, by engaging in the activity, is communicating information of any sort. For example, in Powers v. Floersheim (1967) 256 Cal. App.2d 223 [63 Cal. Rptr. 913], the defendant urged that printed forms used in collecting debts were constitutionally protected, and thus their distribution could not be regulated. The Court of Appeal determined that the forms did not constitute a type of speech: No opinion, thought expression, or other form of information is contained in the forms under discussion. They are merely tools of a trade, much as a hammer is a tool of the trade of carpentry. The purchaser seeks no information from the form, and the designer seeks to convey none. ( Id. at p. 233.) Fortunetelling is different. It involves the communication of a message directly from the fortuneteller to the recipient. That words are used is not critical; the key is that the words convey thoughts, opinions and, sometimes, fiction and falsehoods. [3] This communication between persons, however, is at the very core of what is known as speech. That fortunetelling consists of speech does not of itself determine what level of protection it must be afforded under article I, section 2, of the Constitution, but it does establish that fortunetelling is not a mere commercial activity. The conclusion in Bartha implies that to characterize an activity as merely commercial magically removes any constitutional barriers to its regulation or prohibition. (2) But it is manifest that speech does not lose its protected character when it is engaged in for profit. ( Va. Pharmacy Bd. v. Va. Consumer Council (1976) 425 U.S. 748, 761 [48 L.Ed.2d 346, 358, 96 S.Ct. 1817]; Time, Inc. v. Hill (1967) 385 U.S. 374, 397 [17 L.Ed.2d 456, 472, 87 S.Ct. 534]; New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964) 376 U.S. 254, 266 [11 L.Ed.2d 686, 698, 84 S.Ct. 710, 95 A.L.R.2d 1412]; Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson (1952) 343 U.S. 495, 501-502 [96 L.Ed. 1098, 1106, 72 S.Ct. 777]; People v. Glaze (1980) 27 Cal.3d 841, 846 [166 Cal. Rptr. 859, 614 P.2d 291].) It should be remembered that the pamphlets of Thomas Paine were not distributed free of charge.... Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion are available to all, not merely to those who can pay their own way. ( Murdock v. Pennsylvania (1943) 319 U.S. 105, 111 [87 L.Ed. 1292, 1297, 63 S.Ct. 870, 146 A.L.R. 81].) Further, Characterizing [a] publication as a business, and the business as a nuisance, does not permit an invasion of the constitutional immunity against restraint. ( Near v. Minnesota (1931) 283 U.S. 697, 720 [75 L.Ed. 1357, 1370, 51 S.Ct. 625].) The idea is not sound ... that the First Amendment's safeguards are wholly inapplicable to business or economic activity. And it does not resolve where the line shall be drawn in a particular case merely to urge ... that an organization for which the rights of free speech and free assembly are claimed is one `engaged in business activities' or that the individual who leads it in exercising these rights receives compensation for doing so. ( Thomas v. Collins (1944) 323 U.S. 516, 531 [89 L.Ed. 430, 441, 65 S.Ct. 315].) It is thus no answer to the charge that the ordinance violates the Constitution to characterize what it prohibits as commercial activity; we must still inquire whether speech is being repressed. And when, as here, speech is indeed involved, we must evaluate the constitutionality of the regulation under the stringent tests of article I, section 2, of our Constitution.