Court Opinion

ID: 9844113
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 02:57:52.386361+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:28.007614
License: Public Domain

WHITE, J.
I concur in the judgment.
I still adhere to the views expressed in the dissenting *120opinions in In re Lane (Cal.) 18 Cal.Rptr. 35, 367 P.2d 675, and in the same ease after rehearing granted, ante, p. 99 [22 Cal.Rptr. 857, 372 P.2d 897], in which dissents I concurred, and which stand for the principle that under the express grant of power contained in article XI, section 11 of our California Constitution, where the Legislature has prohibited certain conduct, cities and counties may nevertheless prohibit other and different conduct in the same field by the adoption of local ordinances in furtherance of the state act as might appear reasonable and proper in a given locality. In other words, the mere fact that the Legislature has entered a certain field through legislation therein does not justify the implications that it has preempted that field to the exclusion of local legislation in the same field unless it can justly and reasonably be said that the local ordinance is in conflict with the Constitution or with the provisions of the state law. (Stanislaus County etc. Assn. v. County of Stanislaus, 8 Cal.2d 378, 384, 385 [65 P.2d 1305].) As was said in the dissenting opinion in the case of In re Lane, supra ((Cal.) 18 Cal.Rptr. 35, 367 P.2d 675, citing and discussing supporting cases) : “This court, in every case where it has invalidated such local legislation as being in conflict with general laws, has found some additional factor or factors from which the intention of the Legislature to occupy the field to the exclusion of any local legislation either expressly appears or can be reasonably implied.”
In the case now engaging our attention, petitioner was charged with a violation of subsection (b) of section 41.02 of the Los Angeles Municipal Code (the ordinance here challenged as void), which makes it unlawful for a person “to exhibit and perform or participate in the presentation of an obscene, indecent and lewd play or representation.”
However, in the case now before us, I am satisfied that by the very language of subdivision 2 of Penal Code section 314 making it unlawful for any person “. . . to make any other exhibition of himself to public view, or the view of any number of persons, such as’ is offensive to decency, or is adapted to excite to vicious or lewd thoughts or acts ...” and in section 650% of the Penal Code .making it a misdemeanor for any person to commit any act “. . . which openly outrages public decency . . .” the Legislature has manifested a clear intention to occupy in its entirety the field in which the City of Los Angeles sought to legislate. We are not here confronted with an ordinance which involves new and additipnal regula*121tions in aid and furtherance of the general law, as did the ordinance under consideration in the case of In re Lane, supra, but with an ordinance which punishes exactly the same act denounced by a state law. It is, consequently, in conflict therewith and therefore, to that extent, void. (In re Mingo, 190 Cal. 769, 771 [214 P. 850].)