Opinion ID: 3050323
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Open-Booth Requirement

Text: Fantasyland argues that San Diego County Ordinance No. 9479 is invalid under several facets of Renton intermediate scrutiny and under Justice Kennedy’s concurring opinion in Alameda Books, 535 U.S. at 444-53.3 Fantasyland alleged that 2 Fantasyland conceded that this evidence satisfied the County’s initial evidentiary burden. See Fantasyland, 373 F. Supp. 2d at 1107. 3 Justice Kennedy did not join the plurality opinion in Alameda Books. As “his concurrence is the narrowest opinion joining in the judgment of the Court,” it is the controlling opinion. Ctr. for Fair Pub. Policy, 336 F.3d at 1161. FANTASYLAND VIDEO v. COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO 13997 the ordinance violated both the First Amendment and the California Constitution. We have previously upheld open-booth requirements similar to the one adopted by the County. Spokane Arcade, Inc. v. City of Spokane, 75 F.3d 663 (9th Cir. 1996); Ellwest Stereo Theaters, Inc. v. Wenner, 681 F.2d 1243 (9th Cir. 1982). In both Spokane Arcade and Ellwest we found that the openbooth requirements were narrowly tailored to a substantial interest. See Spokane Arcade, 75 F.3d at 666-67; Ellwest, 681 F.2d at 1246-47. Other circuits have also upheld such ordinances, concluding that the alternatives would less effectively serve the municipality’s substantial interest in deterring sexual activity in peep-show booths. See Pleasureland Museum, Inc. v. Beutter, 288 F.3d 988, 1003-04 (7th Cir. 2002); Mitchell v. Comm’n on Adult Entm’t Establishments, 10 F.3d 123, 141-44 (3d Cir. 1993); Bamon Corp. v. City of Dayton, 923 F.2d 470, 473-74 (6th Cir. 1991); Doe v. City of Minneapolis, 898 F.2d 612, 617-19 (8th Cir. 1990); Wall Distributors, Inc. v. City of Newport News, 782 F.2d 1165, 1169-70 (4th Cir. 1986).

Fantasyland first contends that the County has no substantial governmental interest under Renton in preventing private sexual conduct within an enclosed booth. We disagree. [3] The conduct at issue is not private at all. It is occurring at a retail establishment. The “curtailing [of] public sexual criminal offenses” is a significant state interest. Ellwest, 681 F.2d at 1246. The County’s objective in reducing instances of prostitution and solicitation at businesses that operate peep show booths is valid. Furthermore, the County has a substantial interest in preventing certain private sexual acts occurring within peep show booths, notably the use of so-called “glory 13998 FANTASYLAND VIDEO v. COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO holes”—the placement of a peep show patron’s genitals through holes or gaps in the wall partition between the booths. Such activities constitute lewd conduct under California Penal Code § 647(a). See People v. Rylaarsdam, 181 Cal. Rptr. 723, 727-28 (App. Dep’t Super. Ct. 1982). [4] Moreover, there is no requirement under Renton that the asserted secondary effects be criminal. See, e.g., Ctr. for Fair Pub. Policy, 336 F.3d at 1166 (reducing late night noise and traffic). One may therefore accept Fantasyland’s proposition that masturbation in a fully-enclosed booth is legal in California and still find a substantial governmental interest in curtailing the activity. Rampant masturbation at a commercial property open to the public may rationally trigger sanitation concerns and impair the right of other patrons to view their materials or read the accompanying articles in peace. See Deluxe Theater & Bookstore, Inc. v. City of San Diego, 221 Cal. Rptr. 100, 102 (Ct. App. 1985) (finding that city had an interest in regulating peep show booths due to the potential for unlawful, offensive, and unsanitary behavior).
Fantasyland next suggests that the County failed to show a nexus between the peep show booths and its interest in curtailing sexual activity. [5] When enacting the open-booth requirement, the County Board of Supervisors referenced anecdotal reports of sexual activity occurring within peep show booths of other jurisdictions. The County also incorporated the findings from Spokane Arcade, 75 F.3d at 664-65, and Deluxe Theater & Bookstore, 221 Cal. Rptr. at 102, where municipalities enacted open-booth ordinances in response to drug use and sexual conduct by booth patrons. Reliance on the experiences of other jurisdictions is sufficient to satisfy the County’s minimal burden at the legislative stage. See Renton, 475 U.S. at 50-52. FANTASYLAND VIDEO v. COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO 13999 To avoid summary judgment, Fantasyland must produce contrary evidence that casts direct doubt on the County’s conclusions. It offered the lone declaration of John M. Goldenring, a medical doctor and public health expert. In his declaration, Dr. Goldenring stated that infection from sexually transmitted diseases could only occur through sexual contact, and not through seminal fluid left on the surfaces of the peep show booths. [6] The district court correctly found that Dr. Goldenring’s declaration was insufficient as a matter of law. See Fantasyland, 373 F. Supp. 2d at 1114-15. The County did not adopt the open-booth requirement to curtail the transmission of disease through bodily fluids left in the booths. Rather, it enacted the requirement to reduce the instances of sexual activity, solicitation, and pandering occurring within those spaces. Nothing in Dr. Goldenring’s declaration challenges the County’s evidentiary conclusions regarding the prevalence of those activities.4
Finally, Fantasyland suggests that there are far less drastic means of accomplishing the County’s stated objective. They include reducing the size of the booth, requiring that there be a space between the floor and the bottom of the door to allow verification that only one person is in the booth, and monitoring the spaces around the booths. [7] The issue is not whether Fantasyland can posit less restrictive alternatives. The narrow tailoring requirement “is 4 Fantasyland also references the declaration of its vice president, who speculated that the open-booth requirement would facilitate contact between customers “culminating in relatively anonymous sexual encounters after they leave the business” (emphasis added). This declaration does nothing to cast doubt on the County’s rationale to curb sexual activity occurring inside the business. 14000 FANTASYLAND VIDEO v. COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO satisfied ‘so long as the . . . regulation promotes a substantial government interest that would be achieved less effectively absent the regulation’ ” and “the means chosen are not substantially broader than necessary to achieve the government’s interest.” Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781, 799800 (1989) (citation omitted, omission in original). [8] Fantasyland has not shown that the open-booth requirement is substantially broader than necessary to curtail the targeted sexual activity. It did present a declaration that peep show patronage generally declines by 60% after removal of the doors. However, such decline in business, standing alone, is not determinative. [9] Fantasyland has not produced any evidence showing that the decline was unconnected to the County’s asserted secondary effects — i.e., that the 60% were there just to watch the movie. See Ellwest, 681 F.2d at 1247 (finding nothing in the record to substantiate plaintiff’s “suggestion that, because of the open booth requirement, potential viewers forgo their right to watch films of their choice”). [10] Furthermore, the ordinance does not restrict protected speech occurring in the booths. The ordinance does not in any way limit the content of the videos, the number of booths available for viewing the videos, or the availability of the videos. The videos are as available as ever.
[11] To justify a content-based zoning ordinance that restricts sexual and pornographic speech, Justice Kennedy wrote in Alameda Books that “a city must advance some basis to show that its regulation has the purpose and effect of suppressing secondary effects, while leaving the quantity and accessibility of speech substantially intact.” 535 U.S. at 449. The city must have some basis to think that its ordinance will FANTASYLAND VIDEO v. COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO 14001 suppress secondary effects, but not also the speech associated with those effects. Id. at 449-50. [12] We have said that Justice Kennedy’s concurrence did nothing “to precipitate a sea change in this particular corner of First Amendment law.” Ctr. for Fair Pub. Policy, 336 F.3d at 1162. Furthermore, we determined that his proportionality language was designed for “a classic erogenous zoning ordinance whereby the city was restricting certain land uses,” and that it was never intended to apply to an hours-of-operation ordinance. Id. at 1163 (noting that the proportionality analysis, if applied to a time restriction, would invalidate all such laws). [13] We now hold that Justice Kennedy’s concurrence is also inapplicable to an open-booth requirement. Under the County’s rationale, the patron watching a private peep show often seeks to masturbate, solicit sexual acts, or engage in sexual acts while in the booth. Any regulation that deters these activities will necessarily make the forum for the speech less attractive, but only because the speech and sexual acts originate with the same person and occur at the same time. The overall quantity of the protected expression must be reduced, but only because the patron is chilled from also contemporaneously engaging in the unprotected behavior. Justice Kennedy’s proportionality language was not designed for situations where the protected speech and the unprotected conduct merge in the same forum. Fantasyland is of course entitled to cast doubt on the County’s reasoning. It could attempt to prove an absence of the asserted unlawful or illicit sexual activity in the booths, thereby defeating the County’s inference of correlation between the speech at issue and the secondary effects. Alternatively, Fantasyland could produce evidence that the openbooth requirement does little to deter the sexual activity while, at the same time, substantially chills the protected speech. It has done neither here. 14002 FANTASYLAND VIDEO v. COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO [14] The County’s open-booth requirement is valid under prevailing Ninth Circuit authority and nothing in Alameda Books undermines that conclusion. As a result, the district court correctly granted summary judgment to the County on this claim.