Court Opinion

ID: 9536240
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 06:56:33.675231+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:29.455760
License: Public Domain

RICHARDSON, J.
I respectfully dissent for several reasons. The ordinance is presumed to be constitutional and defendant has failed to bear the burden of establishing its clear invalidity. The City Council of Los Angeles was presented with substantial evidence of police, health, and sanitation problems associated with the late night operation of picture arcades featuring “adult” entertainment. The ordinance is reasonably tailored to meet those problems, and does not impair in any legally significant way the protected constitutional rights of anyone. Accordingly, the subject ordinance should be sustained as a perfectly reasonable “time, place [and] manner” regulation similar to those which have been uniformly upheld by our own court within First Amendment contexts. (Dillon v. Municipal Court (1971) 4 Cal.3d 860, 869 [94 Cal.Rptr. 777, 484 P.2d 945].)
It first should be noted what the ordinance is not. It is not an attempt at censorship. The city is not seeking to control or regulate, directly or indirectly, the moving pictures which are being shown. It is apparent from the official hearings that the pictures exhibited in arcades in Los Angeles County are not “Mickey Mouse cartoons,” or ballet portrayals, or travelogues, but movies which generate sexual excitement in patrons. Nevertheless, for 17 hours of every 24 defendant’s commercial offering may be shown without any restraint whatever.
Furthermore, apart from the content of the pictures, it is doubtful that the ordinance even attempts to regulate conduct, whether sexual or lewd. In this case, as properly noted by Presiding Justice Files, speaking for the majority of the Court of Appeal, “The Los Angeles ordinance challenged here regulates business closing hours, not sexual activity. It is an exercise of the city’s police power to reduce the incidence of conduct which is offensive, dangerous or unlawful under state law.... The purpose of the ordinance is not to regulate lewd conduct, but to regulate the operation of a picture arcade business so that its operation does not invite or encourage such violations of state law on its premises. This is a proper exercise of the city’s police power.”
*851Unfortunately, I must be explicit in order to emphasize the reality of the police problem which prompted adoption of the ordinance in question. An investigative officer during official hearings described picture arcades operating in Los Angeles County as “money making machinery houses of masturbation,” in which body and seminal fluids were excreted on walls, floors and patrons’ clothing, causing odors and health, hygiene, sanitary, and police problems that were substantial and continuing. The ordinance was designed to lessen these physical effects by reducing the daily number of hours from 24 to 17 with the closure during the late hours of the night and early hours of the morning when presumably both patronage would be lowest, and available police supervision diminished. The time limitations are not unreasonably burdensome.
It has been accepted that picture arcades present a particular police problem which was well described in People v. Perrine (1975) 47 Cal. App.3d 252, 258 [120 Cal.Rptr. 640]:
“A picture arcade is a business, carried on in a place which the public generally is invited to enter and use. Since it is a place of entertainment, its patrons are not expected to enter with the solemnity of a business visitor at a mercantile establishment. Ordinarily those entering a picture arcade are seeking amusement, relaxation or excitement, possibly sexual stimulation or gratification, depending on the taste or mood of the individual and the kind of pictures exhibited. Among such visitors it is foreseeable that some will be predisposed to conduct which is offensive, dangerous to others and even, unlawful. The potential for misuse of the premises, for law violations, and for bodily harm to law-abiding patrons, is obvious, as is the concomitant need for continuous supervision.” (Italics added.)
While free speech is a right, protected by both our federal and state Constitutions, we have said that it is not immune from reasonable regulation as to time, place, and manner if the regulation is clearly and narrowly drawn to further a legitimate purpose. (Kash Enterprises, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles (1977) 19 Cal.3d 294, 302-303 [138 Cal.Rptr. 53, 562 P.2d 1302]; Welton v. City of Los Angeles (1976) 18 Cal.3d 497, 504 [134 Cal.Rptr. 668, 556 P.2d 1119].)
The majority insists that “The operation of a picture arcade has been held to be an activity which is protected by the First Amendment.” *852{Ante, p. 846.) I fully agree. However, it is noteworthy that both authorities cited and relied on by the majority in support of the foregoing generality fully recognize that limitations on the manner of operation of picture arcades are entirely proper and in no way violative of First Amendment rights. Thus, the Perrine court reviewing this very ordinance upheld a provision which requires that the arcade “‘shall have a responsible person on the premises to act as manager.’” (47 Cal.App.3d 252, 259.) Similarly, in EWAP, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles (1979) 97 Cal.App.3d 179, 189 [158 Cal.Rptr. 579], the court upheld, against a challenge that freedom of expression was infringed, another provision of this same ordinance which prohibited picture booths which are either partially or fully enclosed. This restriction was determined to be a valid exercise of the city’s police power “to reasonably regulate and license arcades for purposes of health, safety and public welfare. [Citations.]” In short, notwithstanding the First Amendment claims asserted, California law is that a man’s picture booth is not his castle. A manner regulation of another sort was sustained in Antonello v. City of San Diego (1971) 16 Cal.App.3d 161, 166 [93 Cal.Rptr. 820] (regulation of the internal construction of picture arcades).
Similar considerations should support the validity of reasonable time restrictions contained in the same ordinance. The same public interest identified in Perrine has equal application to the propriety of the brief closure hours herein presented. As previously noted the hours from 2 a.m. to 9 a.m. are a particularly appropriate subject for closure regulations. It is during the early morning hours that opportunities for lewd and disruptive conduct increase as available police supervision decreases.
Thus, assertion of the police power to control reasonably the time as well as the manner of arcade operation is supported by logic. It is also sustained by precedent. As we said in Sunset Amusement Co. v. Board of Police Commissioners (1972) 7 Cal.3d 64, 72 [101 CaLRptr. 768, 496 P.2d 840], “A municipality has broad power to enact ‘all local, police, sanitary, and other ordinances and regulations not in conflict with general laws.’ (Cal. Const., art. XI, § 7.) An ordinance so enacted will ordinarily be upheld if ‘it is reasonably related to promoting the public health, safety, comfort, and welfare and if the means adopted to accomplish that promotion are reasonably appropriate to the purpose. [Citations.]’”
*853In harmony with the foregoing general principles California courts have had no difficulty in upholding the closure by ordinance of massage parlors between the hours of 10:30 p.m. and 7 a.m. (Brix v. City of San Rafael (1979) 92 Cal.App.3d 47, 51 [154 Cal.Rptr. 647], holding “The city council could reasonably conclude that because an increase in criminal activity occurs in commercial establishments during the late evening and early morning hours, a restriction prohibiting business operation after 10:30 p.m. would serve to reduce the risk of illegal activity.”) Similarly, in 7978 Corporation v. Pitchess (1974) 41 Cal. App.3d 42, 47 [115 Cal.Rptr. 746], in upholding a municipal ordinance prohibiting dancing at a public ballroom between the hours of 2 a.m. and 6 a.m., the appellate court observed, “The reasonableness of regulation under the police power is dependent upon the nature of the business being regulated and the degree of threat that the operation of such business presents to the tranquility, good order, and well-being of the community at large. So long as a ‘patent relationship between the regulations and the protection of the public health, safety, morals, or general welfare’ exists, the regulations will be considered reasonable. [Citations.].. .With respect to the subject matter of the regulation here, i.e., closing hours, ‘the right to regulate hours of closing of such business as public dance halls and similar public exhibitions at reasonable liours has long been recognized and is universally supported.’ [Citation.]
“We cannot say that the closing hours imposed on plaintiffs’ business are arbitrary or unreasonable. The county could justifiably conclude that public dancing and public entertainment ‘at such late hours would tend to attract and congregate evilly disposed persons at hours when the [county] would be least prepared with police to guard against the acts of such persons.’ [Citation.] The county could also conclude that during a portion of the 24-hour day the desires of those who seek to present public entertainment around the clock should yield to the wishes of those who seek peace and quiet in the small hours of the morning.”
Doubtless for similar reasons the Legislature at the state level has by statute proscribed the sale of alcoholic beverages between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. (Pen. Code, § 398.)
The ordinance before us fairly balances the conflicting interests, private and public. The regulatory hand over the protected First Amendment rights is very light indeed. In my view, under well established au*854thority, the ordinance is a valid exercise of a city’s police power in imposing reasonable restrictions on the time of exercise of First Amendment rights. I would affirm the judgment.
Clark, J., and Manuel, J., concurred.