Court Opinion

ID: 9728908
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:18:56.136157+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:52.950390
License: Public Domain

*115FLAHERTY, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. The majority holds that a state has the power under the Twenty-First Amendment to the United States Constitution to regulate the sale and consumption of alcohol; that there is no constitutional right to engage in the business of selling alcoholic beverages; that the state may impose reasonable conditions and limitations on the sale of alcoholic beverages; and that “the usual tests” concerning the constitutional validity of these conditions and limitations are not involved because “an individual who accepts the privilege of holding a liquor license is deemed to consent to the conditions and restrictions attached to the license.” Since discouraging consumption of alcoholic beverages is a legitimate legislative purpose, and since banning price advertising “bears a reasonable relation to legitimate legislative goals,” any curtailment of free speech which results, the majority reasons, is “justified where acquisition of a liquor license is a privilege and not a right.”
While it is true that there may be no federally protected right of commercial speech on the facts of this case under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, it is equally certain under our decision in Insurance Adjustment Bureau v. Insurance Commissioner that there are rights under Article I, Section 7 of the Pennsylvania Constitution:
We hold, therefore, that the Pennsylvania Constitution, Article I, Section 7, will not allow the prior restraint or other restriction of commercial speech by any governmental agency where the legitimate, important interests of government may be accomplished practicably in another, less intrusive manner.
518 Pa. 210, 225, 542 A.2d 1317, 1324 (1988)1 (Emphasis added.) This holding is relevant to a consideration of the majority’s view that the statute at issue in this case is reason*116ably related to a legitimate governmental purpose. In Pennsylvania, the reasonableness of the relationship between the statute and the governmental purpose must be answered within the context of the protections the Pennsylvania Constitution provides to commercial speech. And those protections, in a word, are that any regulation restricting commercial speech must involve legitimate, important governmental interests and that there must be no less intrusive way practically to protect those interests.
Moreover, there is no presumption of validity of a liquor regulation or any governmental regulation which restricts commercial speech. In Insurance Adjustment Bureau, we stated:
We note our agreement with the Bureau that in cases involving the constitutional challenge to a restriction on commercial speech which is not false or deceptive, “The party seeking to uphold a restriction of commercial speech carries the burden of justifying it.”
Id. at 219, n. 5, 542 A.2d at 1321, n. 5. (Citations omitted.)
Thus, I would remand the case for a determination of whether the Commonwealth has met its burden of justifying its regulation of commercial speech by establishing that there is no less intrusive way in which its legitimate and important purpose practically can be achieved.

. Article I, Section 7 provides, in pertinent part:
The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the invaluable rights of man, and every citizen may freely speak, write and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty.