Opinion ID: 2977905
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The applicable analytic framework

Text: In deciding whether the sign ordinances are facially unconstitutional, we must first determine which of two possible analytical frameworks to apply. The first framework is that announced by the Supreme Court in Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U.S. 51, 58-59 (1965), and elaborated upon in later cases. Under the Freedman framework, “a facial challenge lies whenever a licensing law gives a government official or agency substantial power to discriminate based on the content or viewpoint of speech by suppressing disfavored speech or disliked speakers.” City of Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publ’g Co., 486 U.S. 750, 759 (1998). The first way that an ordinance can vest “substantial power” in local officials to engage in content-based discrimination is by placing “unbridled discretion in the hands of a government official or agency.” FW/PBS, Inc. v. City of Dallas, 493 U.S. 215, 225 (1990). To avoid granting such unbridled discretion, ordinances “must contain precise and objective criteria on which they must make their decisions; an ordinance that gives too much discretion to public officials is invalid.” Lady J. Lingerie, Inc. v. City of Jacksonville, 176 F.3d 1358, 1361 (11th Cir. 1999) (citing Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham, 394 U.S. 147 (1969)). Second, licensing ordinances must require prompt decisionmaking by the officials reviewing applications. “An ordinance that permits public officials to effectively deny an application by sitting on it indefinitely is also invalid.” Lady J, 176 F.3d at 1361 (citing Freedman, 380 U.S. at 56-57). Ordinances that do not set reasonable time limits on the decisionmaker create the risk of indefinitely suppressing permissible speech and are therefore facially unconstitutional under Freedman. FW/PBS, 493 U.S. at 227. Nos. 08-1329/1361 H.D.V.-Greektown, LLC, et al. Page 15 v. City of Detroit The plaintiffs argued before the district court—and continue to argue on appeal—that the City’s sign ordinances are facially unconstitutional under Freedman. They reason that the ordinances vest unbridled discretion in the City to grant or deny permits because the ordinances do not contain specific grounds for the denial of sign-permit applications. The plaintiffs also note that the sign ordinances fail to place any time limits on the City for acting on sign-permit applications. But the district court agreed with the City that the Freedman framework did not apply. The court instead held that the correct standard was contained in Thomas v. Chicago Park District, 534 U.S. 316 (2002). There, the Supreme Court determined that the Freedman framework did not apply to content-neutral, “time, place, and manner” restrictions. Id. at 322. Rather, the Court held that the parkland-use ordinance before it was subject to the requirement that it contain “adequate standards to guide the [licensing] official’s discretion and render it subject to effective judicial review.” Id. at 323. The Thomas Court also determined that a content-neutral permit scheme (a) “must not be based on the content of the message,” (b) “must be narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest,” and (c) “must leave open ample alternatives for communication.” Id. at n.3 (citing Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement, 505 U.S. 123, 130 (1992)). In order to decide which precedent to apply, we must determine whether the City’s sign ordinances are content based or content neutral. See Thomas, 534 U.S. at 322; see also Turner Broad. Sys., Inc. v. FCC, 512 U.S. 622, 642 (1994) (stating that the constitutional scrutiny applied to a regulation depends upon whether it is content based or content neutral). “Government regulation of expressive activity is content neutral so long as it is justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech.” Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781, 791(1989) (internal quotation marks omitted). An ordinance is not a content-based regulation of speech if (1) the regulation controls only the places where the speech may occur, (2) the regulation was not adopted because of disagreement with the message that the speech conveys, or (3) the government’s interests in the regulation are unrelated to the content of the affected speech. Covenant Media of S.C., LLC v. City of N. Charleston, 493 F.3d 421, 432 (4th Cir. 2007) (paraphrasing Hill v. Colorado, 530 U.S. 703, 719-20 (2000)) (internal punctuation omitted). Nos. 08-1329/1361 H.D.V.-Greektown, LLC, et al. Page 16 v. City of Detroit The plaintiffs argue that the ordinances at issue are content based because they distinguish between various types of signs—and thus various types of protected speech—by content. For instance, the “Signs” chapter of the DZO contains separate definitions for “advertising signs,” § 61-6-3, “business signs,” § 61-6-7, and “political signs,” § 61-6-18. The same chapter imposes different height requirements on business and identification signs, § 61-6-35, than it does for real estate, construction, and political signs, § 61-6-41, or advertising signs, § 61-6-57. Finally, the plaintiffs note that sign-permit applications require that the content of the proposed signage be identified. The plaintiffs’ arguments regarding the supposed distinctions between the various types of speech in the sign ordinances are unpersuasive. There is simply nothing in the record to indicate that the distinctions between the various types of signs reflect a meaningful preference for one type of speech over another. As the district court noted, this court held in Wheeler v. Commissioner of Highways, 822 F.2d 586, 591 (6th Cir. 1987), that “the onpremises [e.g., business]/off-premises [e.g., advertising] distinction does not constitute an impermissible regulation of content just because the determination of whether a sign is permitted at a given location is a function of the sign’s message.” We see no reason why the rationale in Wheeler regarding the on-premises/off-premises distinction would not extend to the types of technical distinctions in the City’s sign ordinances cited by the plaintiffs. Worth noting, however, is the Eleventh Circuit’s decision in Solantic, LLC v. City of Neptune Beach, 410 F.3d 1250, 1266 (11th Cir. 2005), where it held that Neptune Beach’s sign code was content-based because of its varying treatments for different sorts of signs. An example cited in Solantic is arguably relevant to this case as well: [M]any of the sign code’s exemptions are plainly content based. For example, exemption (3) applies to flags and insignia only of a “government, religious, charitable, fraternal, or other organization.” Thus, a government or religious organization seeking to fly its flag may do so freely, whereas an individual seeking to fly a flag bearing an emblem of his or her own choosing would have to apply for a permit to do so, and would have to abide by all of the restrictions enumerated in § 27-581. For example, the government tax collector's office could display a flag reading, “Stop Tax Evasion,” whereas an individual homeowner could not display a flag saying, “Stop Domestic Violence,” since § 27-581(13) prohibits the use of the word “stop” in any nonexempt, nongovernmental sign. Nos. 08-1329/1361 H.D.V.-Greektown, LLC, et al. Page 17 v. City of Detroit Id. at 1263. The court concluded that, “because some types of signs are extensively regulated while others are exempt from regulation based on the nature of the messages they seek to convey, the sign code is undeniably a content-based restriction on speech.” Id. at 1266. The Solantic court’s classification of the sign regulations before it as content-based appears to us to reflect an overly narrow conception of the definition of content-neutral speech. The ordinances at issue in Solantic seem to satisfy all three of the possible independent bases for content neutrality listed by the Supreme Court in Hill (i.e., (1) the regulation is not a regulation of speech, but controls only the places where the speech may occur; (2) the regulation was not adopted because of disagreement with the message that the speech conveys; or (3) the government’s interests in the regulation are unrelated to the content of the affected speech). Hill, 530 U.S. at 719-20. Indeed, we doubt that there are many municipal sign ordinances around the country that would not be classified as contentbased prior restraints under Solantic. Because Solantic appears to employ an analysis that is inconsistent with Hill and Thomas, we shall not rely on its rationale. The plaintiffs’ argument regarding the necessity of listing a sign’s content on a permit application also fails. Although they are correct in pointing out that the sign-permit application contains an item labeled “Wording,” they can point to no provision in any of the sign ordinances that allows the City to reject an application due to the message it contains. The sign-permit application, taken as a whole, properly focuses on the physical characteristics and placement of proposed signs, which are entirely legitimate governmental concerns in this context. See Metromedia, Inc. v. City of San Diego, 453 U.S. 490, 509-10 (1981) (holding that safety and aesthetics are legitimate government interests to further through sign ordinances). In sum, there is no evidence that the City’s sign ordinances discriminate based upon content. We will thus apply the Thomas standard for content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions. Nos. 08-1329/1361 H.D.V.-Greektown, LLC, et al. Page 18 v. City of Detroit