Court Opinion

ID: 9493162
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:59:58.080947+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:41.243434
License: Public Domain

O’SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
The City of Simi Valley enacted a reasonable zoning ordinance regulating the location of adult businesses. Philip Young, who was denied a permit to open a nude dancing club in a shopping center, challenged the ordinance on First Amendment grounds. A jury that heard Young’s claims unanimously concluded that the ordinance, as applied by Simi Valley officials in this ease, did not violate Young’s First Amendment rights.
The jury was, however, unable to reach a decision as to whether the ordinance as a general matter effectively denies persons a reasonable opportunity to own and to operate adult businesses in Simi Valley. Accordingly, no verdict was rendered and the district court declared a mistrial. The district court then granted Young judgment as a matter of law, finding the City’s ordinance unconstitutional both on its face and as applied. See Young v. City of Simi Valley, 977 F.Supp. 1017, 1022 (C.D.Cal.1997).
The court now sustains Young’s constitutional challenge to the “sensitive use” provision of Simi Valley’s ordinance, which prohibits the opening of adult businesses near certain sensitive uses such as youth-oriented businesses, schools, and churches. Based on the theoretical possibility that a sensitive use might apply for a zoning permit and disqualify a pending application for an adult use located nearby, the court concludes that the ordinance gives private parties a so-called “sensitive use veto” over the opening -of adult businesses in Simi Valley. Taking this hypothetical and running with it, the court declares the sensitive use provision unconstitutional on its face. The majority reaches this conclusion even though there is no dispute that the provision was not applied unconstitutionally against Young, whose own attempt to secure an adult use permit was in any event precluded by a preexisting sensitive use — a youth-oriented karate studio located in close proximity to Young’s proposed site for a nude dance establishment.
As a plaintiff raising a facial challenge, Young bears “a heavy burden” in advancing his claim. National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley, 524 U.S. 569, 580, 118 S.Ct. 2168, 141 L.Ed.2d 500 (1998) (internal quotation marks omitted). As the Supreme Court has recently reminded us, “[f]acial invalidation ‘is, manifestly, strong medicine’ that ‘has been employed by the Court sparingly and only as a last resort.’ ” Id. (quoting Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 613, 93 S.Ct. 2908, 37 L.Ed.2d *824830 (1973)); see also Los Angeles Police Department v. United Reporting Publishing Corp., — U.S. --,-, 120 S.Ct. 483, 489-90, 145 L.Ed.2d 451 (1999). Because I cannot agree with the court’s facial invalidation of Simi Valley’s ordinance, I must respectfully dissent.
I
The district court struck down Simi Valley’s zoning ordinance on two grounds. Neither constitutes an adequate basis for holding the ordinance unconstitutional.
A
The district court held that the ordinance’s sensitive use provision unconstitutionally gives such uses a de facto veto power over adult business permit applications. The majority agrees, finding the provision facially invalid for failing to provide would-be adult business owners with “reasonable alternative avenues of communication” as required under City of Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 U.S. 41, 50, 106 S.Ct. 925, 89 L.Ed.2d 29 (1986).
Under the Renton test, Simi Valley’s ordinance is constitutional, as long as it “is designed to serve a substantial government interest and allows for reasonable alternative avenues of communication.” Id. at 50, 106 S.Ct. 925. Young concedes that the ordinance is designed to serve a substantial government interest, namely, Simi Valley’s strong interest in “com-batting] the undesirable secondary effects” of adult businesses. Id. at 49, 106 S.Ct. 925. The only issue in this appeal, then, is whether the ordinance “effectively deni[es] [Young] a reasonable opportunity to open and operate an adult [business] within the city.” Id. at 54, 106 S.Ct. 925.
The district court concluded that the theoretical possibility that a sensitive use might act to disqualify Young’s application in itself renders the ordinance unconstitutional by “mak[ing] it unreasonably difficult, if not impossible, for an adult usage applicant to complete the permit process.” 977 F.Supp. 1017, 1020 (C.D.Cal.1997). The majority apparently agrees. See maj. op. at 818.
The possibility that a sensitive use might attempt to exercise a de facto veto power over adult business applications does exist; how this deprives Young of a reasonable opportunity to open an adult business, however, is not apparent. Under the majority’s reasoning, the mere potential for an ordinance to be applied in an unconstitutional manner renders the ordinance altogether unconstitutional. Under such a theory, almost any adult business zoning ordinance — including the one upheld in Renton — would be unconstitutional. For example, an ordinance that left half of a city’s space available to adult businesses and did not contain any buffer zone requirements could still be attacked based on the possibility that a sensitive use (or the city itself) could purchase all property zoned for adult businesses, leaving such businesses without any available properties at which to locate and thus depriving them of a reasonable opportunity to operate an adult business. Such a theory is untenable in light of Renton, where the Supreme Court reversed this court to uphold the City of Renton’s ordinance as constitutional — without pausing to speculate about possible scenarios in which the ordinance might be applied unconstitutionally.
Upholding the facial constitutionality of the sensitive use provision would not place the ordinance beyond constitutional scrutiny. The provision would still be fully subject to constitutional challenge on an “as applied” basis. In this case, for example, a reasonable jury could have found a high likelihood that a sensitive use would act to disqualify a future permit application by Young — even though the jury that did hear the case apparently did not do so. At trial Young introduced evidence from which it might be inferred that the Joshua Institute was a sham opened by Norman Walker to disqualify Young’s application. Based on this circumstantial evidence, a *825jury could have believed that Walker would act similarly with respect to Young’s future adult business permit applications.
This is not, however, the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn on the evidence. Significant evidence in the record — of a direct rather than circumstantial nature— points in the opposite direction. For instance, Walker testified that the opening of the Bible study class had nothing to do with Young’s permit application; that any interaction between the Joshua Institute’s application for a zoning permit and Young’s application was “coincidental” and “unintentional”; and that Walker “had no idea,” at the time that the Joshua Institute applied for a zoning permit, “that the effect of what [the Institute] did could stop Mr. Young” from obtaining a zoning permit for his proposed adult theater. Furthermore, the proposed location of Young’s adult business was in any case already disqualified by the presence of a nearby youth-oriented business. In light of this evidence, it is not surprising that the jury found that the ordinance had not been applied unconstitutionally against Young.
In sum, the likelihood of a sensitive use acting to manipulate Simi Valley’s zoning ordinances is a factual question for a jury to decide. This determination should be made on a case-by-case basis, in light of the facts and circumstances surrounding a particular adult use permit application. The district court erred in finding the ordinance facially unconstitutional and enjoining its enforcement.
B
The district court struck down the ordinance on another ground. Under the buffer zone requirements of the ordinance, approximately four potential adult use sites exist simultaneously in Simi Valley— a city in which only one application for an adult use is pending. The district court held, as a matter of law, that four possible sites “simply does not amount to a reasonable number of alternative means of communication.” 977 F.Supp. at 1022. As the majority points out, see maj. op. at 821-22, the district court reached this conclusion without conducting the fact-specific inquiry into reasonableness required under Ren-ton.
I agree with the majority that the district court’s holding on this issue was erroneous. I would, however, proceed one step further. In Topanga Press, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles, 989 F.2d 1524, 1532-33 (9th Cir.1993), we strongly suggested (but did not explicitly hold) that the constitutionality of an ordinance like Simi Valley’s can be determined by comparing the supply of locations available for adult businesses to the demand for such sites. Based on the Topanga Press analysis, I would expressly hold that, as a matter of law, an adult business zoning ordinance violates the First Amendment if, and only if, the ordinance restricts the number of sites available to adult businesses below the demand for such properties. Such a rule has already been explicitly adopted by the Fifth Circuit, see Woodall v. City of El Paso, 49 F.3d 1120, 1126-27 (5th Cir.1995), and it finds support in the case law of other circuits as well, see, e.g., Buzzetti v. City of New York, 140 F.3d 134, 140-41 (2d Cir.1998); Alexander v. City of Minneapolis, 928 F.2d 278, 283-84 (8th Cir.1991). This rule provides a sensible, workable test for conducting what might otherwise be an unwieldy (and arguably standard-less) inquiry into First Amendment reasonableness under Renton.
The majority expressly declines to adopt such a rule, reasoning that “ ‘supply and demand’ analysis is insufficient to account for the chilling effect that an adult use zoning ordinance may have on prospective business owners.” Maj. op. at 823. While the majority’s concerns are legitimate, I simply fail to see how an individual can claim that he has been denied a reasonable opportunity to open an adult business as long as there exists a site within the municipality available for his business. Under Renton, of course, the aspiring operator of an adult establishment has no right *826to his preferred business location within the city. Regulating the location of certain types of businesses is, after all, “the essence of zoning.” Renton, 475 U.S. at 54,106 S.Ct. 925.
Young is the only individual who has ever sought to establish an adult business in Simi Valley. The number of sites available in the City for such businesses exceeds the demand for such sites (by a multiple of three to four). The Supreme Court’s decision in Renton, the decisions of our sister circuits, and common sense all suggest that the number of available locations is reasonable as a matter of law.
II
Subsequent to oral argument in this case, the Supreme Court decided City of Erie v. Pap’s AM., — U.S. -, 120 S.Ct. 1382, 146 L.Ed.2d 265 (2000). The city of Erie, Pennsylvania, enacted an ordinance prohibiting nudity in public places. Because the ordinance’s definition of “public place” included “all buildings and enclosed places owned by or open to the general public, including ... places of entertainment,” the ordinance had the effect of banning nude erotic dancing. Id. at 1387-88 (quoting Erie, Pa., Code art. 711 (1994)).1
Although the members of the Court divided as to their reasoning, a majority voted to uphold the ordinance as “a content-neutral regulation that satisfies the four-part test of United States v. O’Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 88 S.Ct. 1673, 20 L.Ed.2d 672 (1968).” — U.S. at -, 120 S.Ct. at 1388. Under Eñe, then, municipalities have the right to ban nude dancing entirely if they were to choose to do so in an effort to combat the negative secondary effects of adult entertainment establishments. If municipalities can prohibit nude dancing outright through content-neutral restrictions on conduct aimed at fighting “crime and the other deleterious effects caused by the presence of [an adult] establishment in the neighborhood,” they presumably can certainly use their zoning power to achieve the same ultimate effect as a total ban. Id. at 1393 (O’Connor, J.) (plurality opinion).
In light of evidence in the record suggesting that Young would still seek to present erotic strip tease dancing at his proposed adult entertainment establishment, Eñe does not control this case. It does, however, have important implications for the constitutionality of adult use zoning ordinances.
Because Erie did not overrule Renton— Justice O’Connor’s plurality opinion in Eñe relied upon Renton for its analysis— the two decisions must be read as consistent with each other (despite the dissent’s claim of irreconcilability, see id. at 1407-09 (Stevens, J., dissenting)). When read together, Eñe and Renton establish somewhat different frameworks for evaluating the constitutionality of content-neutral regulations of nude dancing as opposed to other forms of adult entertainment. Under Eñe, a municipality can enact a content-neutral ordinance banning nude dancing entirely. See id. at 1388. Under Renton, however, a municipality can enact a content-neutral ordinance regulating adult entertainment only to the extent that the ordinance does not deny an individual “a reasonable opportunity to own and operate an adult theater within the city.” 475 U.S. at 54, 106 S.Ct. 925. Thus, after Eñe, the extent to which cities like Simi Valley may ban or otherwise regulate adult entertainment would appear to depend upon the specific type of entertainment being regulated. Although I believe, for the reasons set forth above, that Young’s challenge to the City’s ordinance fails under Renton, I am persuaded that his challenge would indisputably fail if governed by the Eñe standard.
*827In sum, the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Eñe reaffirms the important principle that “the government should have sufficient leeway to justify [content-neutral restrictions regulating conduct] based on secondary effects” of such conduct. Id. at 1396. The City would do well to consider both the holding and reasoning of Eñe carefully in any attempt to refashion its ordinance in the wake of today’s decision.
Ill
Simi Valley’s adult business zoning ordinance allows for “reasonable alternative avenues of communication” and does not offend First Amendment standards. Although its sensitive use provision raises constitutional concerns and may be subject to challenge on an “as applied” basis, it is not unconstitutional on its face. Furthermore, as the majority recognizes, the ordinance’s distance and buffer requirements undoubtedly pass constitutional muster. I would reverse and remand for vacation of the injunction in its entirety.

. "To comply with the ordinance, ... dancers must wear, at a minimum, 'pasties’ and a 'G-string.' ” -U.S. at-, 120 S.Ct. at 1388.