Opinion ID: 499806
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Prior Restraint and Overbreadth

Text: 43 The requirement of obtaining a license does not operate as a prior restraint on expression. As the activities of the escort services and their employees do not implicate substantial first amendment rights, the county may exercise some discretion in granting licenses. If the county revokes or denies licenses for arbitrary or constitutionally suspect reasons, the aggrieved party may challenge the application of the regulation in that specific context. 7 We note that the county granted these plaintiffs licenses and therefore they may lack standing to challenge the licensing requirements as it applies to them. In any event, the fact that they have licenses militates against facial invalidation of the regulation. The regulation's time, place, and manner restrictions on the operation of escort services are valid. 8 44 The plaintiffs' attack for overbreadth also fails. The regulation's bounds are sufficiently clear that there is no substantial instrusion on noncommercial social associations. Flipside, 455 U.S. at 494-96, 102 S.Ct. at 1191-92; Broadrick, 413 U.S. at 615, 93 S.Ct. at 2917. 9 To the extent that the escort services' challenge for overbreadth asserts the rights of other business associations involved in significant amounts of expressive activities, it fails because such a challenge cannot be made in a commercial context. See Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, 433 U.S. 350, 380-81, 97 S.Ct. 2691, 2707-08, 53 L.Ed.2d 810 (1977). The justification for this limitation on attacks for overbreadth is not based on the assumption that all expression emanating from commercial associations is commercial speech: such an assumption is incorrect. See Virginia Pharmacy, 425 U.S. at 761-62, 96 S.Ct. at 1825-26. Instead, it is justified because commercial entities are less likely to require an outsider to champion their first amendment rights. Bates, 433 U.S. at 380-81, 97 S.Ct. at 2707-08; Virginia Pharmacy, 425 U.S. at 771-72 & n. 24, 96 S.Ct. at 1830-31 & n. 24. Accordingly, the escort services may not assert the rights of other commercial associations. 10