Opinion ID: 3035963
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Pole Sign Regulation

Text: The Code restricts the availability of pole signs as a carrier of communication in the City. See, e.g., LOC §§ 47.04.100, 47.04.102, 47.10.405(1)(D), 47.10.410(1)(D). However, pole signs are permissible in the City’s general commercial zones “when necessary to provide vision clearance at driveways or intersections and when there is no alternative, visible on-building or monument sign location.” LOC § 47.10.410(1)(D). Plaintiffs urge that because the Sign Code bans their pole sign, it is an unconstitutional regulation of plaintiffs’ speech and that the Code impermissibly bans a protected medium of expression in violation of City of Ladue v. Gilleo, 512 U.S. 43, 54 (1994) (holding unconstitutional a city’s ban on all residential signs, because they are a “venerable means of communication that is both unique and important”). [1] The “government may impose reasonable restrictions on the time, place, or manner of engaging in protected speech 1108 G.K. LTD. TRAVEL v. CITY OF LAKE OSWEGO provided that they are adequately justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech.” City of Cincinnati v. Discovery Network, Inc., 507 U.S. 410, 428 (1993) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). In addition to being justified without reference to content, the restrictions must be “narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest and . . . leave open ample alternative channels for communication of the information.” Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781, 791 (1989) (citing Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence, 468 U.S. 288, 293 (1984)).
To pass muster under Ward, the challenged regulation must first be “justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech.” Id. Our primary concern is determining whether a regulation of speech was adopted out of disagreement with a message sought to be conveyed. “The government’s purpose is the controlling consideration.” Id. However, we need not engage in a searching inquiry of the legislature’s motive to determine the government’s purpose. Rather, “whether a statute is content neutral or content based is something that can be determined on the face of it; if the statute describes speech by content then it is content based.” Menotti v. City of Seattle, 409 F.3d 1113, 1129 (9th Cir. 2005) (citing City of Los Angeles v. Alameda Books, Inc., 535 U.S. 425, 448 (2002) (Kennedy, J., concurring)) (internal quotation marks omitted). [2] The pole sign restriction is not a “law[ ] that by [its] terms distinguish[es] favored speech from disfavored speech on the basis of the ideas or views expressed.” Turner Broad. Sys. v. FCC, 512 U.S. 622, 643 (1994). The Code restricts all pole signs across the City’s general commercial zones without creating exceptions for preferred content. Cf. Foti v. City of Menlo Park, 146 F.3d 629, 636 (9th Cir. 1998). The burdens imposed by these pole sign restrictions are borne equally by all of the City’s residents. See Turner Broad. Sys., 512 U.S. G.K. LTD. TRAVEL v. CITY OF LAKE OSWEGO 1109 at 643. Further, plaintiffs offer no evidence suggesting illicit motive or bias on the part of the City or that the City banned pole signs in general, or their pole sign in particular, because of a desire to stifle certain viewpoints. See City Council of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. 789, 804 (1984). Plaintiffs argue that the Code’s grandfather clause, LOC § 47.04.100, exempting the City’s preexisting signs from compliance with the Sign Code until there has been a change in copy or alteration, is content based because it requires City officers to “read a sign’s message to determine if the sign is exempted from the ordinance.” Foti, 146 F.3d at 636. It is not clear, however, that officers merely examining the face of the sign to determine whether its text or graphics have changed in a technical sense renders the grandfather provision content based. Regardless, at this point, we need not determine whether the grandfather clause as applied to plaintiffs is an unconstitutional content-based regulation of speech, because all pole signs, including preexisting, grandfathered ones, were to be brought into compliance with the Sign Code’s mandates by May 21, 2004. See GK Ltd. Travel I, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6984 at ; LOC § 47.04.100(5). Therefore, the question of the constitutionality of the grandfather clause as applied to pole signs is now moot. See Clark v. City of Lakewood, 259 F.3d 996, 1011 (9th Cir. 2001) (“[A] case is moot when the issues presented are no longer ‘live’ or the parties lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome.”) (internal citations omitted). [3] We conclude that the City’s restriction on plaintiffs’ pole sign is not a content-based regulation of plaintiffs’ speech. We therefore turn to whether the City’s interest in regulating pole signs is significant, whether the restriction is narrowly tailored and whether plaintiffs retain ample alternative channels to communicate their message.
[4] Content-neutral time, place or manner restrictions must advance a significant government interest in order to be con1110 G.K. LTD. TRAVEL v. CITY OF LAKE OSWEGO stitutional. See Ward, 491 U.S. at 791. Through the Code’s statement of purpose, the City asserts numerous interests in passing its sign regulations, including its pole sign restriction. Section 47.03.010 states: The City Council finds that to protect the health, safety, property and welfare of the public, to provide the neat, clean, orderly and attractive appearance of the community, to improve the effectiveness of signs, to provide for safe construction, location, erection, and maintenance of signs, to prevent proliferation of signs and sign clutter, and to minimize adverse visual safety factors to travelers on public highways and on private areas open to public travel, it is necessary to regulate [signs] . . . . [5] Of the justifications for the Sign Code and its restriction on pole signs, the two most prominent are the preservation of the City’s aesthetic quality and the protection of travel safety. These are oft-invoked objectives with a rich history of judicial endorsement, and sometimes skepticism. See Foti, 146 F.3d at 637 n.8. Against the backdrop of numerous decisions of the Supreme Court and this court, we do not doubt that Lake Oswego’s interests in its appearance and the safety of the public are significant and well established. See Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. at 807 (“The problem addressed by this ordinance — the visual assault on the citizens of Los Angeles presented by an accumulation of signs posted on public property — constitutes a significant substantive evil within the City’s power to prohibit.”); Metromedia, Inc. v. City of San Diego, 453 U.S. 490, 507 (1981) (“Nor can there be substantial doubt that the twin goals that the ordinance seeks to further — traffic safety and the appearance of the city — are substantial governmental goals.”); Foti, 146 F.3d at 637. Plaintiffs seem to argue that even if the general interests in preventing visual blight and ensuring travel safety are significant, they are not significant for Lake Oswego because the G.K. LTD. TRAVEL v. CITY OF LAKE OSWEGO 1111 City has neither established that it has a problem with visual blight or travel safety, nor that the pole sign restriction would actually advance the City’s asserted interests.6 In the absence of such evidence, plaintiffs contend, the Sign Code is a constitutionally defective means for advancing any governmental interest, significant or otherwise. [6] These arguments are not convincing. As to whether the City’s interests are actually served by the Sign Code, we generally defer to the legislative body passing the law in determining whether the government’s ends are advanced by a regulation. See City of Lakewood, 259 F.3d at 1015. Further, the Sign Code, including the pole sign restriction, was the result of much legislative deliberation, a dynamic dialogue with the City’s residents and businesses and extensive hearings; these conversations, along with Council reliance on the experience of other cities, produced strong evidence of the need for sign restrictions and the form these restrictions should take.7 This evidence provided the City with legitimate and relevant bases for advancing its Sign Code and restricting the availability of pole signs. See Lorillard Tobacco v. Reilly, 533 U.S. 525, 555 (2001) (“We have permitted litigants to justify speech restrictions by reference to studies and anecdotes pertaining to different locales altogether, or even, in a case applying strict scrutiny, to justify restrictions based 6 Plaintiffs also argue that the City’s willingness to exempt certain, preexisting signs from the regulations indicates that the City’s interests are not substantial. See LOC § 47.04.100. However, the City’s interests are advanced by substantial reduction in offensive signage even when all such signs are not immediately removed. “We [do not] require that the Government make progress on every front before it can make progress on any front.” United States v. Edge Broad. Co., 509 U.S. 418, 434 (1993). See also Moser v. FCC, 46 F.3d 970, 974 (9th Cir. 1995). 7 At one City public hearing, a resident characterized pole signs as a “visual pollution.” Furthermore, a Department of Planning and Development memorandum indicates that businesses “approached the City requesting monument signs to replace pole signs which become less visible as street trees grow taller.” 1112 G.K. LTD. TRAVEL v. CITY OF LAKE OSWEGO solely on history, consensus, and ‘simple common sense.’ ”); City of Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 U.S. 41, 51-52 (1986) (“The First Amendment does not require a city, before enacting such an ordinance, to conduct new studies or produce evidence independent of that already generated by other cities, so long as whatever evidence the city relies upon is reasonably believed to be relevant to the problem that the city addresses.”).
[7] A content-neutral regulation designed to advance significant government interests must be narrowly tailored to be constitutional. Narrow tailoring requires that the regulation actually advance the government’s interests, but it need not do so in the least restrictive or least intrusive way. See State University of New York v. Fox, 492 U.S. 469, 479 (1989); Ward, 491 U.S. at 799. “So long as the means chosen are not substantially broader than necessary to achieve the government’s interest . . . , the regulation will not be invalid simply because a court concludes that the government’s interest could be adequately served by some less-speech-restrictive alternative.” Id. at 800. [8] Plaintiffs argue that the restriction on pole signs is not narrowly tailored because it goes further than necessary to achieve the City’s interests in aesthetics and traffic safety. We do not agree. The Code permissibly and in a narrowly tailored way limits the prominence of plaintiffs’ advertising sign by restricting its length and position. See Foti, 146 F.3d at 641 (in holding a sign restriction to be narrowly tailored, we noted “[t]he restrictions on the size and number of picket signs are reasonable legislative judgments in light of the City’s concern for traffic safety.”). Because of their height, pole signs, as defined by Lake Oswego, can reasonably be perceived by the City to be aesthetically harmful and distracting to travelers. See Metromedia, 453 U.S. at 510 (“It is not speculative to recognize that billboards by their very nature, wherever located G.K. LTD. TRAVEL v. CITY OF LAKE OSWEGO 1113 and however constructed, can be perceived as an ‘esthetic harm.’ ”). Severely limiting their presence in Lake Oswego directly serves the City’s purposes. See Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. at 808 (“By banning these signs, the City did no more than eliminate the exact source of the evil it sought to remedy.”). The Sign Code’s pole sign restriction is a narrowly tailored means of achieving the City’s significant interests.
[9] Even a narrowly tailored content-neutral regulation must not foreclose too many channels of expression; there must be ample alternative opportunities for a speaker to convey his or her message. In our analysis, however, we are cautioned against invalidating government regulations for failing to leave open ample alternative channels unless the regulation foreclose[s] “an entire medium of public expression across the landscape of a particular community or setting.” Colacurcio v. City of Kent, 163 F.3d 545, 555 (9th Cir. 1998) (citing Metromedia, 453 U.S. at 525-27 (Brennan, J., concurring)). [10] Although it restricts the availability of pole signs in the City, the Code says nothing about other non-sign-based forms of communication such as handbills, radio, television, newspaper or telemarketing. See Bland v. Fessler, 88 F.3d 729, 736 (9th Cir. 1996). Even with respect to signage, the Code itself authorizes wall signs, monument signs, awning and canopy signs, blade signs and overhanging signs, allowing plaintiffs a “reasonable opportunity” to communicate their message. See LOC §§ 47.03.015, 47.10.412, 47.10.415, 47.10.420; Menotti, 409 F.3d at 1141 (citing City of Renton, 475 U.S. at 54). In light of these ample alternatives, we cannot invalidate the Sign Code merely because it restricts plaintiffs’ preferred method of communication.8 See Taxpayers for 8 More extensive restrictions banning “a venerable means of communication that is both unique and important” might be unconstitutional. City 1114 G.K. LTD. TRAVEL v. CITY OF LAKE OSWEGO Vincent, 466 U.S. at 812 (“[T]he First Amendment does not guarantee the right to employ every conceivable method of communication at all times and in all places”); Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U.S. 77, 88-89 (1949) (“That more people may be more easily and cheaply reached by sound trucks . . . is not enough to call forth constitutional protection for what those charged with public welfare reasonably think is a nuisance when easy means of publicity are open.”). [11] In sum, we hold that the Sign Code’s pole sign restriction is justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech, is narrowly tailored to achieve the City’s significant interests in aesthetics and traffic and traveler safety and, although it forecloses the availability of pole signs, it leaves open ample alternative means of communicating the plaintiffs’ advertising message. The City’s pole sign restriction, as applied to plaintiffs, is constitutional.