Court Opinion

ID: 9426497
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:18:07.994923+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:01.331313
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Blackmun,
with whom Mr. Justice Brennan, Mr. Justice Stewart, and Mr. Justice Marshall join, dissenting.
I join Mr. Justice Stewart’s dissent, and write separately to identify an independent ground on which, for me, the challenged ordinance is unconstitutional. That ground is vagueness.
I
We should put ourselves for a moment in the shoes of the motion picture exhibitor. Let us suppose that, having previously offered only a more innocuous fare, he *89decides to vary it by exhibiting on certain days films from a series which occasionally deals explicitly with sex. The exhibitor must determine whether this places his theater into the “adult” class prescribed by the challenged ordinance. If the theater is within that class, it must be licensed, and it may be entirely prohibited, depending on its location.
“Adult” status vel non depends on whether the theater is “used for presenting” films that are “distinguished *or characterized by an emphasis on” certain specified activities, including sexual intercourse, or specified anatomical areas.1 It will be simple enough, as the operator screens films, to tell when one of these areas or activities is being depicted, but if the depiction represents only a part of the films' subject matter, I am at a loss to know how he will tell whether they are “distinguished or characterized by an emphasis” on those areas and activities. The ordinance gives him no guidance. Neither does it instruct him on how to tell whether, assuming the films in question are thus “distinguished or characterized,” his theater is being “used for presenting” such films. That phrase could mean ever used, often used, or predominantly used, to name a few possibilities.
Let us assume the exhibitor -concludes that the film series will render his showhouse an “adult” theater. He still must determine whether the operation of the theater is prohibited by virtue of there being two other “regulated uses” within 1,000 feet. His task of determining whether his own theater is “adult” is suddenly multiplied by however many neighbors he may have that arguably are within that same class. He must, in other *90words, know and evaluate not only his own films, but those of any competitor within 1,000 feet. And neighboring theaters are not his only worry, since the list of regulated uses also includes “adult” bookstores, “Group ‘D’ Cabaret[s],” sellers of alcoholic beverages for consumption on the premises, hotels, motels, pawnshops, pool halls, public lodging houses, “secondhand stores,” shoeshine parlors, and “taxi dance halls.” The exhibitor must master all these definitions. Some he will find very clear, of course; others less so. A neighboring bookstore is “adult,” for example, if a “substantial or significant portion of its stock in trade” is “distinguished or characterized” in the same way as the films shown in an “adult” theater.
The exhibitor’s compounded task of applying the statutory definitions to himself and his neighbors, furthermore, is an ongoing one. At any moment he could become a violator of the ordinance because some neighbor has slipped into' a “regulated use” classification. He must know, for example, if the adjacent hotel has opened a bar or shoeshine “parlor” on the premises, though he may still be uncertain whether the hotel as a whole constitutes more than one “regulated use.” He must also know the moment when the stock in trade of neighboring bookstores and theaters comes to be of such a character, and predominance, as to render them “adult.” Lest he let down his guard, he should remember that if he miscalculates on any of these issues, he may pay a fine or go to jail.2
It would not be surprising if, under the circumstances, the exhibitor chose to forgo showing the film series altogether. Such deterrence of protected First Amendment activity in the “gray area” of a statute’s possible *91coverage is, of course, one of the vices of vagueness. A second is the tendency of vague statutory standards to grant excessive and effectively unreviewable discretion to the officials who enforce those standards. That vice is also present here. It is present because the vague standards already described are left to the interpretation and application of law enforcement authorities.3 It is introduced even more dangerously by the indefinite standards under which city officials are empowered to grant or deny licenses for “adult” theaters, and also waivers of the 1,000-foot rule.4
All “adult” theaters must be licensed, and licenses are dispensed by the mayor. The ordinance does not specify the criteria for licensing, except in one respect. The mayor is empowered to refuse an “adult” theater license, or revoke it at any time,
“upon proof submitted to him of the violation . . . , within the preceding two years, of any criminal statute ... or [zoning] ordinance . . . which evidences a flagrant disregard for the safety or welfare of either the patrons, employees, or persons residing or doing business nearby.” Code of Detroit § 5-2-3.
*92If the operation of an “adult” theater would violate the 1,000-foot rule, the exhibitor must obtain the approval not only of the mayor but of the City Planning Commission, which is empowered to waive the rule. It may grant a waiver if it finds that the operation of an “adult” theater, in addition to satisfying several more definite criteria, “will not be contrary to the public interest or injurious to nearby properties,” or violative of “the spirit and intent” of the ordinance.
II
Just the other day, in Hynes v. Mayor of Oradell, 425 U. S. 610 (1976), we reaffirmed the principle that in the First Amendment area “ “’government may regulate . . . only with narrow specificity/ ” NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 433 (1963), avoiding the use of language that is so vague that “men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning.” Connally v. General Constr. Co., 269 U. S. 385, 391 (1926). In Hynes we invalidated for its vagueness air ordinance that required “Civic Groups and Organizations,” and also anyone seeking to “call from house to house . . . for a recognized charitable . . . or . . . political campaign or cause,” to register with the local police “for identification only.” We found it intolerably unclear what “Groups and Organizations” were encompassed, what was meant by a “cause,” and what was required by way of “identification.” I fail to see how a statutory prohibition as difficult to understand and apply as the 1,000-foot rule for “adult” theaters can survive if the ordinance in Hynes could not.
The vagueness in the licensing and waiver standards of this ordinance is more pernicious still. The mayor’s power to deny a license because of “flagrant disregard” for the “safety or welfare” of others is apparently exercisable only over those who have committed some *93infraction within the previous two years,5 but I do not see why even those persons should be subject to stand-ardless licensing discretion of precisely the kind that this Court so many times has condemned. See Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, 394 U. S. 147 (1969); Staub v. City of Baxley, 355 U. S. 313 (1958); Kunz v. New York, 340 U. S. 290 (1951); Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U. S. 268 (1951); Soda v. New York, 334 U. S. 558 (1948); Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147, 163-164 (1939); Hague v. CIO, 307 U. S. 496 (1939); Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U. S. 444 (1938). For the exhibitor who must obtain a waiver of the 1,000-foot rule, the City Planning Commission likewise functions effectively as a censor, constrained only by its perception of the “public interest” and the “spirit and intent” of the ordinance. This Court repeatedly has invalidated such vague standards for prior approval of film exhibitions. See Interstate Circuit v. Dallas, 390 U. S. 676, 683 (1968), and cases cited.6 Indeed, a standard much like the waiver stand*94ard in this case was the one found wanting in Gelling v. Texas, 343 U. S. 960 (1952) (censor could ban films “of such character as to be prejudicial to the best interests of the people of said City”).
It is true that the mayor and the Planning Commission review the applications of theaters, rather than individual films. It might also be argued that at least if they adhere to the “spirit and intent” of the ordinance, their principal concern will be with the blighting of the cityscape, rather than that of the minds of their constituents. But neither of these aspects of the case alters its basic and dispositive facts: persons seeking to exhibit “adult,” but protected, films must secure, in many cases, the prior approval of the mayor and City Planning Commission; they inevitably will make their decisions by reference to the content of the proposed exhibitions; they are not constrained in doing so by “narrowly drawn, reasonable and definite standards.” Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U. S., at 271. This may be a permissible way to control pawnshops, pool halls, and the other “regulated uses” for which the ordinance was originally designed. It is not an acceptable way, in the light of the First Amendment’s presence, to decide who will be permitted to exhibit what films in what places.
Ill
The Court today does not really question these settled principles, or raise any doubt that if they were applied in this case, the challenged ordinance would not survive. The Court reasons, instead, that these principles need not be applied in this case because the plaintiffs themselves are clearly within the ordinance’s proscriptions, and thus not affected by its vagueness. Our usual practice, as the Court notes, is to entertain facial challenges based on vagueness and overbreadth by anyone subject to a statute’s proscription. The reasons given for de*95parting from this practice are (1) that the ordinance will have no “significant deterrent effect on the exhibition of films protected by the First Amendment”; (2) that the ordinance is easily susceptible of “a narrowing construction”; and (3) that “there is surely a less vital interest in the uninhibited exhibition of material that is on the borderline between pornography and artistic expression than in the free dissemination of ideas of social and political significance.” Ante, at 60, 61.
As to the first reason, I disagree on the facts, as is clear from the initial section of this opinion.7 As to the second, no easy “narrowing construction” is proposed, and I doubt that one exists, particularly since (due to the operation of the 1,000-foot rule) not only the “used for presenting” and “characterized by an emphasis” language relating to “adult” theaters, and the “flagrant disregard” and “public interest” language of the licensing and waiver provisions, but also the definitions of other regulated uses must all be reduced to specificity. See also Hynes v. Mayor of Oradell, 425 U. S., at 622 (“we are without power to remedy the [vagueness] defects by giving the ordinance constitutionally precise content”).
*96As to the third reason, that “adult” material is simply entitled to less protection, it certainly explains the lapse in applying settled vagueness principles, as indeed it explains this whole case. In joining MR. Justice Stewart I have joined his forthright rejection of the notion that First Amendment protection is diminished for “erotic materials” that only a “few of us” see the need to protect.
We should not be swayed in this case by the characterization of the challenged ordinance as merely a “zoning” regulation, or by the “adult” nature of the affected material. By whatever name, this ordinance prohibits the showing of certain films in certain places, imposing criminal sanctions for violation of the ban. And however distasteful we may suspect the films to be, we cannot approve their suppression without any judicial finding that they are obscene under this Court’s carefully delineated and considered standards.

 See ante, at 52-55, and nn. 3-7. I reproduce, or cite specifically to, only those sections of the challenged ordinance that are not set out in the Court’s opinion.

 Official Zoning Ordinance of Detroit § 69.000.

 A special opportunity for arbitrary or discriminatory application of the ordinance is apparently supplied by the operation of the 1,000-foot rule. Presumably, only one of three “regulated uses” within a 1,000-foot area must be eliminated in order for the remaining two to become legal. Por all that appears from the ordinance, the choice of which use to eliminate is left entirely to the enforcement authorities.

 These two features of the ordinance constitute prior restraints and are challengeable on that ground alone. Cf. Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, 420 U. S. 546 (1975). Since, for me, the most glaring defect in the operation of these restraints is the vagueness of the standards governing their applications, however, only the vagueness point is pursued here.

 The ordinance empowers the mayor to act “upon proof submitted to him of [a] violation.” It is possible that he may entertain evidence not only of convictions but also of violations themselves, even though these have not been otherwise adjudicated. Whether legal infractions must be otherwise adjudicated or not, the mayor clearly retains the power to revoke a license for “flagrant disregard,” should infractions occur at any time after the license’s issuance.

 Interstate Circuit disposes of any argument that excessively vague standards may be permitted here because the film exhibitions are not banned entirely, but merely prohibited in a particular place. The ordinance invalidated in Interstate Circuit required exhibitors to submit films for official determination whether persons under 16 should be excluded from the film exhibitions. It thus threatened the exhibitor with a loss of only part of his audience. The effect of the present ordinance is more severe, since if the exhibitor has only one theater, he is completely foreclosed. See also Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, 420 U. S., at 556 n. 8.

 In Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville, 422 U. S. 205 (1975), the case on which the Court relies for the proposition that only statutes having a “significant deterrent effect” may be facially challenged, such an effect in fact was found to exist. The ordinance there at issue prohibited drive-in theaters from exhibiting films in which nude parts of the human body would be “visible from any public street or public place.” We perceived a “real and substantial” deterrent effect in the “unwelcome choice” to which the ordinance put exhibitors: “either [to] restrict their movie offerings or construct adequate protective fencing which may be extremely expensive or even physically impracticable.” Id., at 217. In the present case the second horn of the dilemma is even sharper: the construction (or acquisition) of an entirely new theater.