Court Opinion

ID: 9539556
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:05:59.997065+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:57.367487
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
There are nine words in the majority opinion with which I agree: “the judgment of the Court of Appeal is reversed.” However, because the bulk of the opinion proposes to give effect to a city ordinance that unconstitutionally bans the dissemination of First Amendment-protected material, I must distance myself from its reasoning.
First, the facts.
At the time of trial, Chuck’s Bookstore was the only adult bookstore in National City—a city of more than 57,000—although there is one other sexually oriented business, a movie theater.
Purporting to rid itself of urban blight, the city enacted an ordinance prohibiting sexually oriented businesses like Chuck’s from locating within 1,500 feet of each other, 1,500 feet of a school or park, or 1,000 feet of a residential zone. Strip development dominates the city’s commercial zones; therefore, as the city conceded at trial, the distance rules are an effective ban *852on places like Chuck’s. But the law also provides that Chuck’s may operate in any commercial zone, regardless of the aforementioned distance requirements, as long as it is in an enclosed mall or an unenclosed mall in which it faces inward so as to be invisible from the street.
The city sought abatement of Chuck’s as a common law and statutory public nuisance. The common law claim rested on an allegation that Chuck’s was pestiferous to its neighbors. The basis for the statutory claim was that Chuck’s violated a National City ordinance: it was too close to residences and the adult theater, and it did not come within any exception to the distance rules because it was not in an enclosed or inward-facing mall.
It was uncontested that Chuck’s enjoys First Amendment protection and therefore the city must provide reasonable alternative avenues of communication, as constitutionally required.1 But much of the city’s case focused on its allegation that Chuck’s was a common law public nuisance. It is to this theory that I turn first.
I
The city could properly seek to have the bookstore abated as a common law public nuisance. (Civ. Code, § 3491, subd. 3; Code Civ. Proc., § 731.) The city alleged, and provided strong evidence at trial, that Chuck’s is a classic public nuisance. (Civ. Code, §§ 3479, 3480.) The store had front and rear entrances. The management would leave the rear door open, evidently without proper supervision, and patrons would wander between Chuck’s and the back alley, which ineffectually separated the store from a historically distinguished row of residences. Chuck’s patrons would, among other activities, have sex in the bushes, wander into neighboring residents’ backyards, bother the neighbors with unsavory requests, and discard condoms and pornographic material on or near neighbors’ residential property. Store workers would slop buckets of pungent cleaning fluid into the back alley.2 The record leaves no doubt whatever that defendant did not manage the property properly.
*853Thus there was ample evidence to sustain the trial court’s judgment that the bookstore was a public nuisance. The judgment did not specify, however, whether Chuck’s was a statutory or a common law nuisance, and the statement of decision discussed only the statutory claim. Perhaps for this reason, the Court of Appeal focused on the constitutionally infirm statutory claim, rather than the strong evidence that Chuck’s was a common law public nuisance.3
Assuming arguendo that the trial court’s judgment declaring Chuck’s a public nuisance was rendered on the constitutionally infirm statutory ground, rather than on the sound basis of the Civil Code, nevertheless the trial court’s decision was correct because there was sufficient evidence of a common law public nuisance to support it. (Nestle v. City of Santa Monica (1972) 6 Cal.3d 920, 925 [101 Cal.Rptr. 568, 496 P.2d 480].) The judgment should therefore have been sustained, for a reviewing court must sustain a judgment if the result was correct, no matter that the trial court gave the wrong legal reason for its decision. (International etc. Workers v. Landowitz (1942) 20 Cal.2d 418, 423 [126 P.2d 609] [even if court erred in its analysis of ordinance’s constitutionality, judgment must be sustained because it was correct on other grounds].) Therefore the majority opinion is correct that the Court of Appeal’s judgment must be reversed.
Alas, in their eagerness to comment on the constitutionality of the ordinance—in actuality not at issue—the majority ignore the common law nuisance claim. Thus in my view their discussion becomes purely advisory.
It is axiomatic that we may not address constitutional questions when there is another ground on which to reach a decision. Such is the rule we have previously imposed on ourselves. (Amador Valley Joint Union High Sch. Dist. v. State Bd. of Equalization (1978) 22 Cal.3d 208, 233 [149 Cal.Rptr. 239, 583 P.2d 1281] [stating general rule]; People v. Williams (1976) 16 Cal.3d 663, 667 [128 Cal.Rptr. 888, 547 P.2d 1000].) It is also part of the self-discipline of the United States Supreme Court, which calls it a “ ‘fundamental rule of judicial restraint.’ ” (Jean v. Nelson (1985) 472 U.S. 846, 854 [86 L.Ed.2d 664, 670-671, 105 S.Ct. 2992].) The federal high court has *854commanded all federal courts to follow the rule. (Ibid.) And it is a principle of decisionmaking to which the appellate courts of every other state in the United States subscribe.4 Finally, a restrained view of a reviewing court’s role would ascribe no importance to a party’s desire to resolve the case on constitutional grounds or lower courts’ failure to address the common law claim. (See United States v. Locke (1985) 471 U.S. 84, 92 [85 L.Ed.2d 64, 74, 105 S.Ct. 1785]; United States v. C.I.O. (1948) 335 U.S. 106, 110 [92 L.Ed.2d 1849, 1855, 685 S.Ct. 1349]; Troy State University v. Dickey (5th Cir. 1968) 402 F.2d 515, 516.)
The constitutional discussion is not necessary to reach the result that the Court of Appeal’s judgment must be reversed. It therefore may be deemed a *855dictum, unnecessary to the judgment. (Bakke v. St. Thomas Public Sch. Dist. No. 43 (N.D. 1984) 359 N.W.2d 117, 120.)
II
As indicated above, the constitutional issue should be of no precedential importance. But because the majority opinion contains a gratuitous commentary on the constitutionality of the National City ordinance, I offer my own views on the subject.
The record establishes conclusively that as applied to a sexually oriented business the National City ordinance cannot pass constitutional muster.
City of Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc. (1986) 475 U.S. 41 [89 L.Ed.2d 29, 106 S.Ct. 925] (Renton), the leading case in this area,5 held that an ordinance that regulates sexually oriented but First Amendment-protected establishments must provide for alternative avenues of communication, and that these avenues must be reasonable. (Id. at p. 50 [89 L.Ed.2d at pp. 39-40].) Moreover, the burden lies with the government to show that the reasonable alternatives exist. (Ibid.; see also Playtime Theaters, Inc. v. City of Renton (9th Cir. 1984) 748 F.2d 527, 538.) Though Renton upheld that city’s dispersal ordinance, it made clear, in line with its general statement at page 50 of 475 U.S. [89 L.Ed.2d at pages 39-40], that the First Amendment requires a city to “refrain from effectively denying ... a reasonable opportunity to open and operate an adult theater within the city . . . .” (Id. at p. 54 [89 L.Ed.2d at p. 42], italics added.)
With these principles in mind, let us examine in greater detail the facts of this case as revealed at trial.
The city’s planning director testified that the distance requirements, taken by themselves, imposed a de facto ban, denying any opportunity—much less a reasonable one—for Chuck’s to operate in National City. Because such a ban is patently unconstitutional, the city also purported to give sexually oriented businesses the opportunity to locate in an unobtrusive mall location. But as the record reveals, the city’s exception is meaningless—the opportunity it provides is purely chimerical.
*856The record discloses that there were only three existing locations that could fulfill the mall requirements: the Plaza Bonita, Sweetwater Town & Country, and South Bay Plaza shopping centers. A witness for defendant, Tony Solis, testified that none of the three shopping centers would lease to an adult bookstore. At South Bay Plaza the leasing agent told him that the center would not rent to a business like Chuck’s. At Town & Country he found out from realtors that an existing lease to Circuit City specified either that Circuit City was forbidden to sublet to an adult bookstore or that the mall was forbidden to lease any space to such a business. At the third and final possible location, Plaza Bonita, the character of the mall was apparently sufficiently genteel that Solis did not even inquire about the possibility of entering into a lease, but merely surveyed the site and took photographs of existing businesses.
In sum, no existing site was available to Chuck’s, a fact that led to the trial court’s somewhat rhetorical remark to counsel, “Is there any question in your mind that not in a million years would Plaza Bonita, or T&C, or South Bay Plaza rent to Mr. Wiener [defendant] . . . ?”6
The unavailability of the city’s entire commercial area, including the three enclosed malls, left only the possibility of new construction that would fulfill the city’s concealment requirements. In that regard, defendant’s expert witness Clifford Beck—a redevelopment consultant with 40 years’ construction experience in shopping centers and an expert in mall development— testified it would cost $6.5 million to build a small inward-facing mall that would meet the requirements.7 More significant yet was Beck’s uncontradicted testimony that in National City it would require two to five years *857merely to assemble the property—from thirty different landowners—and financing needed to build the most uncomplicated and minimally sized mall that would meet the city’s rules.
In sum, defendant proved that the city had effectively denied him “a reasonable opportunity to open and operate an adult [business] . . . .” (Renton, supra, 475 U.S. at p. 54 [89 L.Ed.2d at p. 42].)8 To reach any other conclusion is to ignore commercial reality as well as the First Amendment’s command. “There can be no doubt that bookselling is a constitutionally protected activity or that closing a bookstore for a year may have a substantial impact on that activity.” (People ex rel. Arcara v. Cloud Books, Inc., supra, 68 N.Y.2d 553, 558 [510 N.Y.S.2d 844, 847] [interpreting New York Constitution].)
Relying on Renton, supra, 415 U.S. 41, the majority opinion implies that defendant’s inability to locate his business anywhere in National City does not violate the First Amendment because the only impediments to doing so are economic. (Maj. opn., ante, p. 848 [“The Constitution does not saddle municipalities with the task of ensuring either the popularity or economic success of adult businesses.”].) That statement betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of Renton's teaching.
The Ninth Circuit explained that the Renton ordinance set aside 520 acres on which an adult bookstore could be located, but noted that the district court had found that “a substantial part” of the 520 acres was occupied by existing businesses or industrial facilities not easily adapted—if adaptable at all—to an adult bookstore. (Playtime Theaters, Inc. v. City of Renton, supra, 748 F.2d 527, 534.) The high court rejected the Ninth Circuit’s view that these impediments amounted to a substantial restriction on speech. The court stated: “That respondents must fend for themselves in the real estate market, on an equal footing with other prospective purchasers and lessees, does not give rise to a First Amendment violation. . . . [W]e have never suggested that the First Amendment compels the Government to ensure that adult theaters, or any other kinds of speech-related businesses for that matter, will be able to obtain sites at bargain prices.” (Renton, supra, 415 U.S. at p. 54 [89 L.Ed.2d at p. 42], italics added.)
But the Renton ordinance did not limit the location of adult bookstores to specific physical facilities, as does the ordinance at bench: it merely specified certain distance requirements. (Renton, supra, 415 U.S. at p. 43 [89 *858L.Ed.2d at p. 35]; see also Playtime Theaters, Inc. v. City of Renton, supra, 748 F.2d at pp. 529-530.) Within the 520 acres not occupied by the incompatible existing facilities, an adult bookstore owner was free to build or buy a small mom-and-pop store, for example, and there operate the book business. Renton’s ordinance, in sum, provided for “ ‘[a]mple, accessible real estate.’ ” (475 U.S. at p. 53 [89 L.Ed.2d at p. 41].) The United States Supreme Court was declaring only that the city need not locate economically advantageous sites for an adult bookstore, any more than it need do so for a Shakespearean festival, an art museum, a symphony hall, or a repertory movie theater.
That is not the situation before us. The city conceded the distance rules ban adult bookstores. The record reveals the alternatives to be purely illusory. Alas, those facts do not appear to perturb the majority. If the law’s majestic equality can forbid rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges,9 then apparently in the majority’s view the law may with equally lofty impartiality permit an adult bookstore to locate anywhere available to Saks Fifth Avenue. Renton, however, does not countenance such prohibitions disguised as mere restrictions: immediately after the statement that the law does not require cities to guarantee sites at bargain prices, the court held that a city must “refrain from effectively denying ... a reasonable opportunity to open and operate an adult theater within the city . . . .” (475 U.S. at p. 54 [89 L.Ed.2d at p. 42], italics added)—an opportunity to obtain “ ‘[a]mple, accessible real estate’ ” (Id. at p. 53 [89 L.Ed.2d at p. 41], italics added).10
The complete cynicism of National City’s ordinance is easily exposed. For the ordinance permits adult bookstores to locate precisely where the values the ordinance is ostensibly designed to protect—what the majority opinion refers to as “the moral climate of the community as a whole” (maj. opn., ante, p. 846)—are entirely vulnerable. A family-oriented shopping mall, *859with small children wandering about and adolescents congregating after school, would seem to be the last place the city would prefer an adult bookstore to locate, even if city officials truly believed the mall owner would permit it.
In conclusion, the record shows National City’s ordinance to be in effect a complete proscription of First Amendment-protected adult businesses. The bookstore cannot locate anywhere now, and it would take several years for its owners to be able to build an entire commercial mall, assuming it is feasible and they can afford to do so. Therefore, under the First Amendment as interpreted in Renton, the ordinance cannot stand.11
Ill
National City is said to be a venerable municipality more than 100 years old. No doubt. I must add that the First Amendment is also venerable, it being the foundation of a free society. (See generally my concurring and dissenting opinion in People v. Superior Court (Lucero), supra, 49 Cal.3d at pp. 28-34.)
The judgment of the Court of Appeal should be reversed on the basis of common law public nuisance.12 The balance of the majority opinion cannot be supported.
Kennard, J., concurred.
Appellant’s petition for a rehearing was denied January 21, 1993, and the opinion was modified to read as printed above. Mosk, J., and Kennard, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

The First Amendment does not prevent the state from suppressing obscenity (Roth v. United States (1957) 354 U.S. 476, 485 [1 L.Ed.2d 1498, 1507, 77 S.Ct. 1304]), but there was no contention in this case that Chuck’s was selling obscene material.

Also see the portion of footnote 4 of the majority opinion describing neighbors’ injuries. It is important to note, however, that the references in that footnote to indoor conduct, distasteful as that conduct might be to most people, do not describe a nuisance, for the actionable injury presumably would be neither to others on their own property nor to the possessor of the indoor premises. (See Mangini v. Aerojet-General Corp. (1991) 230 Cal.App.3d 1125, 1133-1137 [281 Cal.Rptr. 827].)
The common law of nuisance has been codified in our Civil Code. Thus it has a statutory basis. Nevertheless, I shall continue to refer to the first cause of action as one for common law nuisance, to distinguish it from the second cause of action under the National City ordinance, which is also statutory.

The bookstore’s First Amendment-protected status does not shield it from California’s common law public nuisance laws. (Arcara v. Cloud Books, Inc. (1986) 478 U.S. 697, 707 [92 L.Ed.2d 568, 578, 106 S.Ct. 3172] [plur. opn.]; accord, id. at p. 708 [92 L.Ed.2d at pp. 578-579] [cone. opn. of O’Connor, J.]; see also Grayned v. City of Rockford (1972) 408 U.S. 104 [33 L.Ed.2d 222, 92 S.Ct. 2294]; cf. People ex rel. Arcara v. Cloud Books, Inc. (1986) 68 N.Y.2d 553 [510 N.Y.S.2d 844] [closing bookstore as nuisance impermissibly burdened freedom of expression under New York Constitution if lesser sanctions would end nuisance]; but see fn. 12, post.)

(Love v. Fulford (Ala. 1983) 442 So.2d 29, 33; Perry v. State (Alaska 1967) 429 P.2d 249, 252; State v. Church (1973) 109 Ariz. 39 [504 P.2d 940, 942] [usual rule]; Bell v. Bell (1971) 249 Ark. 959 [462 S.W.2d 837, 840]; Lipset v. Davis (1949) 119 Colo. 335 [203 P.2d 730, 731]; City of Hartford v. Powers (1981) 183 Conn. 76 [438 A.2d 824, 828]; Agostini v. Colonial Trust Co. (1945) 28 Del.Ch. 360 [44 A.2d 21, 22, fn. 1]; State v. Tsavaris (Fla. 1981) 394 So.2d 418, 421-422; Farmer v. State (1971) 228 Ga. 225 [184 S.E.2d 647, 648]; Roe v. Roe (1984) 67 Hawaii 63 [677 P.2d 468, 471]; Poesy v. Bunney (1977) 98 Idaho 258 [561 P.2d 400, 406]; Haughton v. Haughton (1979) 76 Ill.2d 439 [394 N.E.2d 385, 389]; Board of Com’rs v. Kokomo City Plan Com’n (1975) 263 Ind. 282 [330 N.E.2d 92, 96]; In Interest of Chad (Iowa 1982) 318 N.W.2d 213, 216, fn. 2; State ex rel. Fatzer v. Barnes (1951) 171 Kan. 491 [233 P.2d 724, 726]; Preston v. Clements (Ct.App. 1950) 313 Ky. 479 [232 S.W.2d 85, 88]; Benson & Gold Chev. v. La. Motor Veh. Com’n (La. 1981) 403 So.2d 13, 23; State v. Bassford (Me. 1982) 440 A.2d 1059, 1061; Com’r of Labor and Industry v. Fitzwater (Ct.App. 1977) 280 Md. 14 [371 A.2d 137, 140]; Com. v. Loretta (1982) 386 Mass. 794 [438 N.E.2d 56, 59]; Snyder v. Charlotte P. School Dist., Eaton Cty. (1984) 421 Mich. 517 [365 N.W.2d 151, 158]; Complaint Concerning Winton (Minn. 1984) 350 N.W.2d 337, 343, fn. 9; Kron v. Van Cleave (Miss. 1976) 339 So.2d 559, 563; State ex rel. Union Elec. v. Pub. Serv. Com’n (Mo. 1985) 687 S.W.2d 162, 165 & fn. 4; Board of Com’rs of Flathead County v. Eleventh Judicial Dist. Court (1979) 182 Mont. 493 [597 P.2d 728, 731]; State, Department of Motor Vehicles v. Lessert (1972) 188 Neb. 243 [196 N.W.2d 166, 169]; Spears v. Spears (1979) 95 Nev. 416 [596 P.2d 210, 212]; State v. Hodgkiss (1989) 132 N.H. 376 [565 A.2d 1059, 1061]; Donadio v. Cunningham (1971) 58 N.J. 309 [277 A.2d 375, 384]; Property Tax Dept. v. Molycorp., Inc. (1976) 89 N.M. 603 [555 P.2d 903, 905-906]; Peters v. New York City Housing Authority (1954) 307 N.Y. 519 [121 N.E.2d 529, 531]; Williams v. Williams (1980) 299 N.C. 174 [261 S.E.2d 849, 859]; Murie v. Cavalier County (1938) 68 N.D. 242 [278 N.W. 243, 246]; Greenhills Home Own. Corp. v. Village of Greenhills (1966) 5 Ohio St.2d 207 [215 N.E.2d 403, 407]; Schwartz v. Diehl (Okla. 1977) 568 P.2d 280, 283; State v. House (1985) 299 Ore. 78 [698 P.2d 951, 952]; Ballou v. State Ethics Commission (1981) 496 Pa. 127 [436 A.2d 186, 187 & fn. 2]; Town of Barrington v. Blake (R.I. 1987) 532 A.2d 955; Floyd v. Thornton (1951) 220 S.C. 414 [68 S.E.2d 334, 339] [general rule]; State v. Big Head (S.D. 1985) 363 N.W.2d 556, 559; Watts v. Memphis Transit Management Co. (1971) 224 Tenn. 721 [462 S.W.2d 495, 498]; Courtney v. State (Tex.Ct.App. 1982) 639 S.W.2d 16, 17; Goodsel v. Department of Business Regulation (Utah 1974) 523 P.2d 1230, 1232; Watkins v. Ford (1918) 123 Va. 268 [96 S.E. 193, 194]; State v. Clarke (1985) 145 Vt. 547 [496 A.2d 164, 167]; Tommy P. v. Board of County Com’rs (1982) 97 Wn.2d 385 [645 P.2d 697, 700]; Priester v. Hawkins (1981) 168 W.Va. 569 [285 S.E.2d 396, 398]; Labor & Farm Party v. Elections Bd. ofWis. (1984) 117 Wis.2d 351 [344 N.W.2d 177, 179]; Stambaugh v. State (Wyo. 1977) 566 P.2d 993, 996.)

The majority opinion refers both to Renton and to Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc. (1976) 427 U.S. 50 [49 L.Ed.2d 310, 96 S.Ct. 2440] as landmark cases. But Young was a plurality opinion, and the high court recently disparaged it. (R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992) 505 U.S----[120 L.Ed.2d 305, 322, 112 S.Ct. 2538].) Also, in diametrical contrast to this case, Young considered a dispersal ordinance that left many locations available. (427 U.S. at pp. 71-72, fn. 35 [49 L.Ed.2d at p. 327].) For these reasons, I shall concentrate on Renton as the significant United States Supreme Court authority.

At times the witnesses seemed bemused or incredulous at the kinds of questions they were being asked, because the shopping centers’ unwillingness to rent to an adult bookstore seemed self-evident to them. Solis testified:
“Q. In your experience in the commercial real estate business, is it expected that retail shopping centers such as the ones I’ve mentioned would not rent to adult entertainment businesses?
“A. That’s correct. They ordinarily wouldn’t rent.
“Q. Would not rent?
“A. Would not rent to an adult bookstore.
“Q. And is that generally known by people who are in the commercial real estate business?
“A. Well, if you don’t know it, you’ll soon find out.”

The majority opinion indirectly acknowledges this testimony, but then states that “no direct evidence was presented regarding the economic viability of such an enterprise, or the ability of respondents to undertake such development.” (Maj. opn., ante, p. 838.) This conclusion implies that the burden lies on the bookseller, not the city, to show that the ordinance does not offend the First Amendment. The law, however, is otherwise. (Morscott, Inc. v. City of Cleveland (N.D. Ohio 1990) 781 F.Supp. 500, 503; World Wide Video v. City of Tukwila (1991) 117 Wn.2d 382, 389-390 [816 P.2d 18, 21]; see also Renton, supra, 475 U.S. at p. 50 [89 L.Ed.2d at p. 39].)

There was one other possibility for relocation: the addition, to an existing strip mall of the type ubiquitous in southern California, of an inward-facing adult bookstore. Ironically, the city established through defendant’s witness Beck that this too was impossible: the loss of parking space would make the entire mall uneconomical and might violate zoning laws, and the existing tenants would “beef like mad” about the obstruction of their all-important exposure to the street. In sum, such a modification would not be feasible.

Anatole France, Le Lys Rouge (as printed by Calmann-Lévy, Editeurs (1918)), chapter 7, page 118.

See also Walnut Properties, Inc. v. City of Whittier (1988) 861 F.2d 1102, in which the Ninth Circuit held unconstitutional a city ordinance that was more generous than is National City’s in that it would at least allow a handful of adult businesses to operate (see particularly pp. 1107-1109). The court concluded, “To hold . . . that there are adequate alternatives available for expression of this sort would make a mockery of First Amendment protections and would render meaningless the Supreme Court’s admonition that an ordinance must not ‘effectively den[y] ... a reasonable opportunity to open and operate an adult theater within the city.’ Renton, 475 U.S. at 53-54 [89 L.Ed.2d at pp. 41-42], 106 S.Ct. at 932.” (Id. at p. 1109.)
This court’s recent decision in People v. Superior Court (Lucero) (1989) 49 Cal.3d 14 [259 Cal.Rptr. 740, 774 P.2d 769, A.L.R.5th 3346] adds nothing to the majority’s constitutional surmises. The opinion only briefly alludes to the economic-impact discussion in Renton and does not contravene my discussion of that issue here. (See 49 Cal.3d at p. 25, fn. 6.)

Justice Baxter’s own reference to the third witness’s testimony in footnote 1 of his concurring opinion, ante, makes unpersuasive his statement that the neighbors did not establish an abatable common law nuisance as a matter of law. But if he is correct on this point, then Renton, supra, 475 U.S. 41, applies squarely; and without state law complications there can be no obstacle to the United States Supreme Court hearing the case and correcting the majority opinion’s faulty constitutional reasoning.
Moreover, I find irrelevant Justice Baxter’s statement that there was no evidence a clean, well-maintained bookstore would be unable to acquire space in a mall. He fails to consider that the burden is on the city to show that reasonable alternative avenues of communication exist. The city offered no evidence that a mall would lease space to an adult bookstore.

In stating that the Court of Appeal’s judgment must be reversed, I do not mean to sanction the use of the Civil Code’s restatement of the common law of nuisance as a pretext for ridding a community of First Amendment-protected activity. The federal high court has also cautioned that it would take a dim view of any such action. (Arcara v. Cloud Books, Inc., supra, 478 U.S. 697, 707, fn. 4 [92 L.Ed.2d 568, 578]; accord, id. at p. 708 [92 L.Ed.2d at pp. 578-579] [cone, opn. of O’Connor, J.].) There is no such risk here, however: Chuck’s was proven to be a common law public nuisance and the city’s action was not pretextual in that regard.