Opinion ID: 1800883
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Issue 6-b: Whether Chapter 24-17, N.D. C.C., is unconstitutional because it creates an unconstitutional classification

Text: Newman contends that the chapter unconstitutionally discriminates between off-premise and on-premise signs. In challenging the constitutionality of a statute on this basis, Newman must bear the burden of establishing that the classification bears no reasonable relation to a conceivable legislative purpose. Snyder's Drug Stores, Inc. v. North Dakota State Board of Pharmacy, 219 N.W.2d 140 (N.D. 1974). This court, in Signal Oil and Gas Co. v. Williams County, 206 N.W.2d 75, 83 (N.D. 1973), recognized that the Legislature has broad discretion in making classifications, and enunciated the test to be applied in determining whether a particular classification is unconstitutional: It is . . . well established that a classification although discriminatory is not arbitrary nor violative of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment if any state of facts reasonably can be conceived that would sustain it. [Citations omitted.] Furthermore, a court need not know the special reasons, motives, or policies of a State legislature in adopting a particular classification, so long as the policy is one within the power of the legislature to pursue, and so long as the classification bears a reasonable relation to those reasons, motives, or policies. Several courts have had occasion to decide this precise issue and have upheld the differential treatment of on-premise and off-premise advertising signs. In an opinion written by Mr. Justice William Brennan (now of the United States Supreme Court), the New Jersey Supreme Court reasoned: The business sign is in actuality a part of the business itself, just as the structure housing the business is a part of it, and the authority to conduct the business in a district carries with it the right to maintain a business sign on the premises subject to reasonable regulation in that regard . . . Plaintiff's placements of its advertising signs, on the other hand, are made pursuant to the conduct of the business of outdoor advertising itself, and in effect what the ordinance provides is that this business shall not to that extent be allowed in the borough. It has long been settled that the unique nature of outdoor advertising and the nuisances fostered by billboards and similar outdoor structures located by persons in the business of outdoor advertising, justify the separate classification of such structures for the purposes of governmental regulation and restriction. United Advertising Corp. v. Borough of Raritan, 11 N.J. 144, 150, 93 A.2d 362, 365 (1952). The United States Supreme Court also has given the distinction its approval in dictum found in Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc., 427 U.S. 50, 96 S.Ct. 2440, 49 L.Ed.2d 310 (1976). It dismissed an appeal in Markham Advertising Co. v. State, supra, 73 Wash.2d 405, 439 P.2d 248 (1968), 393 U.S. 316, 89 S.Ct. 553, 21 L.Ed.2d 512 (1969), for want of a substantial Federal question. See also Inhabitants, Town of Boothbay v. National Adv. Co., supra , and Landau Advertising Co. v. Zoning Board of Adjustment, 387 Pa. 552, 128 A.2d 559 (1957). The above cases recognize that on-premise signs serve the special purpose of identifying the services or products found at the particular site and are a necessary part of conducting a business. On-premise signs are subject to reasonable regulation; however, they need not be regulated to the same extent or in the same manner as off-premise signs. We find that it is not arbitrary or unreasonable to provide different regulations for off-premise and on-premise signs.