Opinion ID: 77679
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Is the Ordinance Content-Based or Is it Content-Neutral?

Text: 45 The first-step in evaluating the constitutionality of an ordinance which restrains protected speech or expression is to determine whether the government is proscribing the speech because it disfavors the message. Ward, 491 U.S. at 791, 109 S.Ct. 2746; Solantic, LLC v. City of Neptune Beach, 410 F.3d 1250, 1258 (11th Cir.2005). In such a case, courts will subject the ordinance to strict scrutiny analysis. Solantic, 410 F.3d at 1258. If, however, the ordinance is content-neutral, courts will analyze it according to intermediate scrutiny (prongs 2 and 3 of the test articulated in Ward). The government's purpose is the controlling consideration at this stage of the inquiry. Ward, 491 U.S. at 791, 109 S.Ct. 2746. Government regulation of expressive activity is content-neutral so long as it is justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech. Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence, 468 U.S. 288, 293, 104 S.Ct. 3065, 82 L.Ed.2d 221 (1984). 46 Accordingly, when we apply this standard to the ordinance at issue, we find, as the district court did, that the ordinance is content-neutral. On its face, it does not disallow certain types of recorded noise or particular viewpoints. It does not distinguish, for example, between excessively loud singing, thunderous classical music recordings, reverberating bass beats, or television broadcasts of raucous World Cup soccer finals. It simply prohibits excessively loud noise from recorded sources, whether radio, television, phonographs, etc. 47 Although L.C. argues that the ordinance is not content-neutral because it sets vague standards for what constitutes unreasonably loud, excessive, unnecessary or unusual noise, which invite subjective enforcement based upon content of the sound, the government's purpose is controlling. See Ward, 491 U.S. at 791, 109 S.Ct. 2746. L.C. did not allege that the County adopted the ordinance because it wanted to silence music with a certain content such as dance-club music, and the text of the ordinance is facially neutral. 48