Opinion ID: 1155727
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Substantial Government Interest

Text: (3) We find, as did the two lower courts, that the first prong of substantial governmental interest is easily satisfied. The city presented substantial evidence at trial that adult businesses are a source of urban decay, and that the location of the adult business at issue in this case has in fact led to the secondary effects the ordinance seeks to curtail. Moreover, the city demonstrated that both the distance regulation and the shopping center exception are designed to serve substantial government interests in decreasing blight and crime, shifting part of the regulatory burden to the private sector, by either dispersing adult businesses, or by placing them in locations such as enclosed shopping malls designed to minimize the occurrence of negative secondary effects, and protecting the city's tax base. (See Renton, supra, 475 U.S. at p. 48 [89 L.Ed.2d at p. 38] [upholding ordinance designed to prevent crime, protect the city's retail trade, maintain property values, and generally `protec[t] and preserv[e] the quality of [the city's] neighborhoods, commercial districts, and the quality of urban life'].) We also find that the city's shopping mall exception is narrowly tailored, since the `regulation promotes ... substantial government interest[s] that would be achieved less effectively absent the regulation.' ( Ward, supra, 491 U.S. at p. 799 [105 L.Ed.2d at pp. 680-681], quoting United States v. Albertini, supra, 472 U.S. at p. 689 [86 L.Ed.2d at pp. 548-549].) First, under the ordinance, the malls in which adult businesses are permitted to be established are either inward looking configurations, or those isolated from direct view from public streets, parks, schools, churches or residentially zoned property. Access is by a pedestrian walkway, not a public street. This configuration reduces the secondary effects associated with adult businesses by segregating such businesses away from residential areas and schools, and placing them in a location where they do not affect the moral climate of the community as a whole. Specifically, it decreases the problems of harassment of neighborhood adults and children, littering of sexually explicit reading material and paraphernalia, loitering, and visual blight from bright colors and explicit signage associated with adult businesses. Second, placing adult businesses in shopping centers promotes the city's interests by shifting part of the regulatory burden to the private sector. A shopping center has its own signage, paint, and landscaping restrictions. A mall arrangement also addresses such factors as hours of operation, parking, and security. Thus, a shopping center generally exercises a high degree of control over its tenants. This benefits the city, as Mr. Post testified, by removing it from the enforcement business. We don't have to expend the amount of resources that we typically would if the shopping center itself is doing some of the policing in terms of these various factors. [9] Finally, there was testimony that the result of reducing the secondary effects of adult businesses, and freeing up public protection resources, is a healthier economic base. As noted above, National City is particularly reliant on its commercial tax base, and hence has a substantial interest in its preservation. Therefore, placing adult businesses in malls furthers the city's substantial interests in reducing the secondary effects of adult businesses, relieving the city from some of the regulatory burden by shifting it to the private sector, and protecting the commercial tax base.