Opinion ID: 377140
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Inspection Requirements

Text: 21 The Peoria ordinance requires that before an adult bookstore license may issue, the Fire, City Planning, and Inspections Departments must inspect the proposed premises to ascertain whether they are in compliance with all applicable provisions of the city code of Peoria. 26 The owner plaintiffs have standing to sue because they are directly affected by the inspection requirement. They contend that the requirement is an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech and an impermissible discrimination against speech on the basis of its content. 22 As we earlier noted, defendants conceded that Peoria imposes no licensing requirement on any bookstore except an adult bookstore. Similarly, this special inspection requirement is imposed only on adult bookstores and other adult uses; no ordinary bookstore is subject to it. Defense counsel told us in oral argument that Peoria has certain general building permit and inspection requirements that apply to all business establishments, but that an ordinary bookstore that seeks to open or to continue in existence in Peoria need not under city law be either inspected or licensed first. The inspection requirements are, therefore, prior restraints on speech that have as their operative distinction the content of the books sold in the bookstore. Bookstores with one type of books must be inspected before a license issues; bookstores with another type of books need not be licensed or inspected. 23 Defense counsel argued that the purpose of these special adult bookstore inspections was to insure that urban blight is retarded by requiring that adult bookstores, at least, comply with city law. He further argued that among the deleterious effects on neighborhoods referred to in the preamble to the ordinance were those that might result from building code violations such as faulty light switches. Aside from our doubt that the preamble is subject to such an interpretation, there is nothing in the record to indicate that adult bookstores, as a class, contain more faulty light switches or other violations than regular bookstores, as a class. We can hardly take judicial notice that such is the case. 24 Peoria has, thus, failed to demonstrate that the special inspection provisions further a legitimate interest unrelated to the suppression of free expression. 27 Adult bookstores are of course subject to the same lawful health and safety regulations of the city code that are applicable to other business establishments in Peoria. Adult bookstores may not, however, be singled out for special regulation unless the city can demonstrate that such action is narrowly devised to further a substantial and legitimate state interest unrelated to censorship or the suppression of protected expression. 28 The city has come forward with no such justification for the inspection procedures, and they are consequently invalid.