Court Opinion

ID: 9469436
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:40:23.030679+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:23.090247
License: Public Domain

PELL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
In Village of Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, - U.S. -, 102 S.Ct. 1186, 71 L.Ed.2d 362 (1982), the Court seemed to put to rest the idea that municipalities could *682not, in an endeavor to retard the growing menace of drug abuse, legislate against the activities of the so-called head shops without running afoul of Constitutional prohibitions. The majority opinion in a scholarly analysis arrived at the conclusion that the West Allis ordinance is without the protective ambit of Hoffman Estates. I cannot agree with that conclusion and respectfully dissent.
Semantic and factual distinctions can be drawn between the ordinance before the Supreme Court and that with which we presently are concerned. These strike me, however, as being matters of form rather than substance and, indeed, again with respect, the majority opinion appears to be straining unduly to distinguish Hoffman Estates. The majority opinion holds that the West Allis ordinance facially is unconstitutionally vague. The Supreme Court in Hoffman Estates in a unanimous opinion held that the ordinance there was not facially vague or overbroad. The Court’s opinion is not a lengthy one but the sweep of its language appears to me to apply equally to the ordinance here under review.
The West Allis ordinance appears to me, on a fair reading, to be a sensible and pragmatic approach, within constitutional limitations, to coping with one phase of a problem which the majority correctly characterizes as adversely affecting “the public health, safety, morals and general welfare.” It is not a complex ordinance or one which should leave a possible violator in any bona-fide doubt as to his status with relation to it. Its primary thrust is against distributing devices “designed for use” 1 or “intended for use” in connection with illegal drugs. Its operating impact is confined to “premises” which, in essence, is defined in that ordinance as a business establishment held out for the use of patrons.
The majority opinion observes that the West Allis ordinance, being criminal rather than civil, must be closely examined. The Supreme Court, however, in Hoffman Estates indicated in examining the ordinance before it that a relatively strict vagueness standard would be applied because of its being concededly quasi-criminal. 102 S.Ct. at 1194. Upon that basis the Court found the ordinance sufficiently clear. The same result, in my opinion, is necessary here.
The majority opinion, however, would require us to give the present ordinance “a somewhat more searching examination” because it is “criminal legislation not restricted to economic or business activity.” I wholly fail to understand the basis of the latter part of this characterization. As I have already, in effect, pointed out the prohibited activities are not those which are indulged in at social gatherings in a home or at picnics in the park but are those which occur on business premises. It is true that the ordinance by its terms is applicable to flesh and blood individuals as well as to various artificial legal entities. This simply means, as I see it, that the ordinance applies to the sales clerk as well as the corporate employer. In other words, the agent as well as the principal may be charged with the violation, one on the ground of actual participation and the other because of re-spondeat superior.
The only other justification of a non-economic characterization that I can discern is that the unlawful activity of distribution includes “the give away” of devices “intended for use” in connection with controlled substances. I regard it as extremely speculative that a business establishment is likely to engage in any extensive give away for-free of paraphernalia of a type contemplated by the ordinance, even cigarette roll*683ing papers, except for bait purpose of inducing prospective buyers to come on the premises. In the unlikely event of a protracted “give away” program occurring and the benevolent or quasi-eleemosynary donor is prosecuted, then it will be time to face this issue on a challenge to the application of the ordinance. As the Court said in effect in Hoffman Estates, we should not because of this de minimis possibility be “prepared to hold that this risk jeopardizes the entire ordinance.” 102 S.Ct. at 1196.
Bearing in mind, in any event, that the Supreme Court itself on the determination of lack of facial vagueness made its examination under a test appropriate to a criminal law, I turn to other aspects of the majority opinion. Even here the majority opinion directs its focus to the noncommercial purveyor, an underlying assumption which I regard as unwarranted in view of the prohibition of activities on the “premises” which phrase, as I have said, is defined as a business establishment.2 The majority opinion also purports to differentiate “intended for use” from “marketed for use” which latter standard the Supreme Court found to be transparently clear, stating that “it describes a retailer’s intentional display and marketing of merchandise.” 102 S.Ct. at 1195. I simply fail to comprehend the reasoning of the majority that the phrase “intended for use” is broader than “marketed for use” and therefore somehow becomes vague, although “marketed for use” is “transparently clear” with regard to intention. Indeed, the Supreme Court opinion seems to equate the phrases, observing that “[t]he standard requires scienter since a retailer could scarcely ‘market’ items ‘for’ a particular use without intending that use.” 102 S.Ct. at 1195.
The majority seems to find an increase in vagueness resulting from the enumeration of certain factors set forth in the ordinance which are to be considered in deciding what is an instrument. It appears to me that the factors enumerated do tend to make the prohibited conduct quite clear. Concern is implicit in the ordinance that the merchandiser of innocent objects normally traded to the general public not run afoul of the ordinance and attention is directed to legitimate businesses such as the registered dealer of tobacco products. Clairvoyance should not be needed to know whether advertising is slanted toward one group of purchasers or another and no doubt that is the reason the majority opinion endeavors, albeit unsuccessfully in my opinion, to relegate the West Allis ordinance to a non-economical status. The other factors enumerated also would seem to have a reasonable bearing on whether a “business establishment” is seeking legitimate or contraband-user customers.
Finally, the majority opinion considers the possibility of arbitrary enforcement but again the focus is on the West Allis ordinance as not being “a business regulation” which characterization the majority blithely brushes aside as not describing West Allis’ enactment. I see no reason that West Allis, as in the case of the Village of Hoffman Estates, could not sufficiently narrow any potentially vague or arbitrary interpretation of the ordinance. In any event, on this aspect of the case, I think we are bound by the determination by the Supreme Court in Hoffman Estates that even if the “risk of discriminatory enforcement” is not insignificant we should not at this step “hold that this risk jeopardizes the entire ordinance.” 102 S.Ct. at 1196.
In candor, I am compelled to conclude that we are involved in a stream of words and an implication of meanings which distort the plain, simple, and easily compre-hendible language of this ordinance. I entertain no doubt whatsoever that the operator of a “business establishment” selling items which the operator knows will be purchased for the purpose of “ingesting, smoking, administering, or preparing any controlled substance” will not have any question but that the ordinance is applica*684ble to him nor that the merchandiser of items not intended for such purpose will have any doubt that his business is not subject to the ordinance. I likewise cannot believe that any law enforcement officer will really have any difficulty in making such a determination.
I am not in disagreement with the majority opinion insofar as it decides that the ordinance provisions pertaining to simulated and controlled substances and simulated drugs do not violate the equal protection clause. Inasmuch, however, as I regard the entire ordinance as being facially free of constitutional threat, I see no necessity for a remand for a severability determination.

. The majority opinion understandably devotes little attention to the phrase “designed for use” as this precise phrase was involved in the Hoffman Estates ordinance. The Supreme Court had little difficulty in disposing of this phraseology as creating improper vagueness. It might seem in view of the Supreme Court holding that this would end the present inquiry in that the plaintiff has been unable to “demonstrate that the law is impermissibly vague in all of its applications.” 102 S.Ct. at 1193. Nevertheless, I will direct my attention in this dissent, as the majority opinion does, to an examination of whether the language “intended for use” creates an impermissibly vague situation invalidating the ordinance in toto, notwithstanding that it includes the phrase “designed for use.”

. The full definition in the ordinance is:
“Premises” means a business establishment and a structure of which it is a part and facility and appurtenances therein and grounds, areas and facilities held out for the use of patrons.