Opinion ID: 1152999
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Free Speech Is Impaired

Text: Our constitution does not set gradations of protected speech nor should the court judicially amend it to do so, especially when all speech is protected on all subjects. Const. art. I, § 5. Gradations based on content reflect little more than individual preferences toward the types of speech the State seeks to regulate. [1] If we do not want the constitution to mean what it says, we had better amend it than corrupt its text through strained interpretations. Although our constitutional provision is broader than its federal counterpart, much written about the First Amendment addresses some of the principles common to both. I will therefore use some federal case law to put our state issue in context. Under our Constitution, free speech is not a right that is given only to be so circumscribed that it exists in principle but not in fact. Freedom of expression would not truly exist if the right could be exercised only in an area that a benevolent government has provided as a safe haven for crackpots. The Constitution says that Congress (and the States) may not abridge the right to free speech. This provision means what it says. We properly read it to permit reasonable regulation of speechconnected activities in carefully restricted circumstances. But we do not confine the permissible exercise of First Amendment rights to a telephone booth or the four comers of a pamphlet, or to supervised and ordained discussion in a school classroom. Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Community Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 513, 89 S.Ct. 733, 740,21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969). The right of free expression ranks among the most important of our constitutional rights [; thus] we must recognize that the precious right of free speech requires protection even when the speech is personally obnoxious. Russo v. Central Sch. Dist No. 1, 469 F.2d 623, 633-34 (2d Cir.1972), cert. denied, 411 U.S. 932, 93 S.Ct. 1899, 36 L.Ed.2d 391 (1973). In the federal context, with its less expansive guarantee of free speech, the Ninth Circuit has recognized that the degree of protection the first amendment affords speech does not vary with the social value ascribed to that speech by the courts. Kev, Inc. v. Kitsap County, 793 F.2d 1053, 1058 (9th Cir.1986). Recognizing the dancing at issue here is protected expression, we must ask what, if any, restrictions the government may constitutionally impose. The constitutional text would permit none; however, case law, both state and federal, makes the text all but unrecognizable in practical application. Under the federal standard, a time, place, and manner restriction may be imposed if it furthers only an important or substantial governmental interest unrelated to free expression, and the restriction goes no further than to promote that interest only. Barnes v. Glen Theatre, Inc., 501 U.S. 560, 566, 111 S.Ct. 2456, 2460, 115 L.Ed.2d 504 (1991). Such is the test used here by the trial court (Deja Vu-Bellevue Clerk's Papers (CP) 186-87, conclusions of law 9 and 10) and adopted by the majority (Majority at 166). But all of the restrictive provisions at issue here are, at the least, regulations on the time, place, and manner of nude dancing (assuming they are not prior restraints as well). The majority, having decided that nude or seminude erotic dancing is little more than a poor relative of other forms of expression, concludes that a more permissive (federal standard) analysis is all that our state law requires. But I see no basis for this approach under our state constitution or our case law because the state text is completely different from the federal. The federal cases cited by the majority were decided long after the state constitution was adopted and, therefore, obviously played no part whatsoever in the original understanding of what our state provision means. Moreover, prior cases decided by our court are on point and contrary to the federal standard. Our court has held article I, section 5 of our state constitution permits the State to impose time, place, and manner restrictions on protected expression ... but only if [the restrictions] (1) are content neutral, (2) are narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest, and (3) leave open ample alternative channels of communication. O'Day v. King County, 109 Wash.2d at 808-09, 749 P.2d 142 (emphasis added); Bering, 106 Wash.2d at 234, 721 P.2d 918 ([R]estrictions on speech can be imposed consistent with Const. art. I, § 5 only upon showing a compelling State interest.); Collier v. City of Tacoma, 121 Wash.2d 737, 753-54, 854 P.2d 1046 (1993) (Tacoma must prove that its ordinances, taken together, are narrowly drawn to serve a compelling state interest.). [2] Bellevue's ordinance fails not just one but all three elements required by O'Day, 109 Wash.2d at 808-09, 749 P.2d 142. Moreover its divergence from the constitutional standard stated in the original text is manifest.
Collier, 121 Wash.2d at 752, 854 P.2d 1046, held time, place and manner restrictions that are viewpoint neutral, but subject matter based, are particularly problematic. We held that such restrictions are permissible only as long as they are narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest and leave open ample alternative channels of communication. Id. at 753, 854 P.2d 1046. We recognized that a censorial justification, i.e., one adopted because of a disagreement with the message that a particular speech conveys, will often not be apparent from the face of the legislation and not be supported by a governmental justification unrelated to the suppression of speech or ideas. Id. (citing Burson v. Freeman, 504 U.S. 191, 212, 112 S.Ct. 1846, 1858, 119 L.Ed.2d 5 (1992) (Kennedy, J., concurring)). A showing of improper legislative intent, therefore, is usually practically impossible to make. Collier, 121 Wash.2d at 751, 854 P.2d 1046. Here Bellevue claims the provisions at issue are designed to ostensibly curb public sexual contact and prostitution, remove the secondary effects of sexually oriented businesses, and facilitate law enforcement officers' ability to detect touching between customers and performers. These claims are of the type we rejected in Collier as too subjective to be determinative. The provisions here facially regulate a specific subject matter sexually oriented dancebut, to survive constitutional scrutiny, these subject matter restrictions must be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest. Collier, 121 Wash.2d at 753, 854 P.2d 1046. These restrictions are clearly not so tailored. Bellevue's ordinance fails the content neutrality test.
Our precedent holds time, place, and manner restrictions on expressive activity are unconstitutional unless the State can demonstrate such laws are necessary to promote a compelling governmental interest. O'Day, 109 Wash.2d at 808, 749 P.2d 142; Bering, 106 Wash.2d at 234, 721 P.2d 918; and Collier, 121 Wash.2d at 753, 854 P.2d 1046. [3] However, the trial court found only substantial or important interests, not compelling ones. (Deja Vu-Bellevue CP 180-31, 186-87, findings of fact 31-34, 36, conclusions of law 9 and 10) (The City's adult cabaret ordinances are designed to serve substantial governmental interests.). Unfortunately the majority has only perpetuated the error. Since a compelling interest was neither found nor concluded by the trial court the regulations facially fail the compelling interest test.
The third and final element of our state constitutional test requires that a time, place, and manner restriction leave open ample alternative channels for communication. Collier, 121 Wash.2d at 759, 854 P.2d 1046. The issue is not whether these dancers can find another job (Majority at 175), it is whether this form of communication will be regulated out of existence by Bellevue's ordinance. In Bellevue the subject ordinances have effectively shut down adult cabarets. The rigid proximity and lighting requirements take the fun out of this entertainment to the extent it is no longer commercially viable. [4] The majority rejects the argument that the trial court erred when it excluded evidence of the ordinance's adverse impact on the economy. But economic impact is the most direct measure of a value placed on an activity by the paying public. If this ordinance did not have an adverse economic impact I am sure the clubs and dancers would not be here. They are the best judges of what is good for their businessnot the government or this court. Destruction of economic viability is the consequence of governmental regulation which first destroys the value of the expression. Under our state constitutional analysis such evidence is extremely pertinent to the viability of a restriction on free speech in the sense of providing alternatives. Implicit in a determination as to whether ample alternative channels of communication exist is whether such alternatives are practically available. Collier, 121 Wash.2d at 760, 854 P.2d 1046. Alternatives are not `alternatives' if they are far from satisfactory. Id. If the business venue which these performers use to provide entertainment goes out of business because of restrictive ordinances, such as those in question, and no satisfactory alternative method for this type of communication is available, this entertainment will simply not be available to the public. Driving this kind of entertainment to extinction seems to be the real goal of these ordinances, although they are dressed up to appear to only regulate. [5] The United States Supreme Court has recognized the role financial incentives play in certain forms of speech when, absent these incentives, there would be no financial reason for the speaker to convey his or her message. In United States v. National Treasury Employees Union, 513 U.S. 454, ___, 115 S.Ct. 1003, 1014, 130 L.Ed.2d 964 (1995), the Court found a ban on honoraria received by federal employees imposed a significant burden on expressive activity because the lack of compensation forced the employees to curtail their expression if they wish[ed] to continue working for the Government. Id. at ___, 115 S.Ct. at 1014. Likewise in Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. New York Crime Victims Bd, 502 U.S. 105, 115, 112 S.Ct. 501, 508, 116 L.Ed.2d 476 (1991) the Court invalidated New York's Son of Sam law, which confiscated the proceeds from the sale of a book by a felon as violative of the First Amendment. There the Court noted, [a] statute is presumptively inconsistent with the First Amendment if it imposes a financial burden on speakers because of the content of their speech. Id. at 115, 112 S.Ct. at 508. The ordinance at issue here was directed at only one type of speech, and it restricted the economic viability of adult cabarets so effectively that it drove all adult cabarets in Bellevue out of business and caused others not to open at all. The government's ability to impose such financial burdens on speech raises the specter that the government may effectively drive certain ideas or viewpoints from the marketplace. Id. [6] It should be remembered that the pamphlets of Thomas Paine were not distributed free of charge. Murdock v. Commonwealth, 319 U.S. 105, 111, 63 S.Ct. 870, 874, 87 L.Ed. 1292, 146 AL.R. 81 (1943). Nor could a free press survive if its publications could not be sold to the public. The ordinance therefore also fails the third and final test for constitutional validity enunciated in Collier.