Opinion ID: 2975704
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Implications of the Twenty-First Amendment

Text: In rejecting the plaintiffs’ First Amendment claim, the district court relied on New York State Liquor Authority v. Bellanca, 452 U.S. 714, 715 (1981) and California v. LaRue, 409 U.S. 109 (1972). D. Ct. Op. at 6, 8. The rationale of these cases was that under the authority granted to the states in the Twenty-first Amendment to regulate liquor sales, a state could prohibit nude dancing in places where liquor is sold. The state relies almost entirely on this reasoning here. Unfortunately for the state, the Supreme Court has entirely abandoned this rationale for upholding regulations that raise First Amendment concerns in places where alcohol is sold. See 44 Liquormart v. Rhode Island, 517 U.S. 484, 516 (1996) (“Without questioning the holding in LaRue, we now disavow its reasoning insofar as it relied on the Twenty-first Amendment. As we explained in a case decided more than a decade after LaRue, although the Twenty-first Amendment limits the effect of the dormant Commerce Clause on a State’s regulatory power over the delivery or use of intoxicating 5 Latin is a dead language anyway. No. 06-1436 Hamilton’s Bogarts, Inc., et al. v. State of Michigan, et al. Page 6 beverages within its borders, ‘the Amendment does not license the States to ignore their obligations under other provisions of the Constitution.’ . . . . Accordingly, we now hold that the Twenty-first Amendment does not qualify the constitutional prohibition against laws abridging the freedom of speech embodied in the First Amendment.”); see also Odle v. Decatur County, 421 F.3d 386, 398 (6th Cir. 2005) (“LaRue’s rationale is no longer good law.”). Because the Bellanca case relied on the same constitutional justifications as LaRue, the subsequent decision in Liquormart abrogated its reasoning as well. In reaffirming the holding of LaRue, the Liquormart Court stated that “the Court has recognized that the States’ inherent police powers provide ample authority to restrict the kind of ‘bacchanalian revelries’ described in the LaRue opinion regardless of whether alcoholic beverages are involved.” 517 U.S. at 515. Thus, a state is allowed implement restrictions on nude dancing to combat the “secondary effects” that are likely to arise from the combination of liquor and nude dancing. See City of Erie v. Pap’s A.M., 529 U.S. 277, 293, 296-97 (2000). Although liquor consumption may well be a valid factor in a state’s consideration of secondary effects, it is no longer correct to argue that the Twenty-first Amendment provides greater authority to regulate expressive conduct wherever liquor is sold.