Court Opinion

ID: 9431357
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:32:07.176439+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:28.152680
License: Public Domain

Justice White,
with whom Justice Stevens and Justice O’Connor join, dissenting.
Today the majority takes an extraordinary doctrine, developed cautiously by this Court over the past 50 years, and applies it to a circumstance, and in a manner, that is without precedent. Because of this unwarranted expansion of our previous cases, I dissent.
I
At the outset, it is important to set forth the general nature of the dispute.
*773The Court quite properly does not establish any constitutional right of newspaper publishers to place newsracks on municipal property. The Court expressly declines to “pass” on the question of the constitutionality of an outright municipal ban on newsracks. Ante, at 762, n. 7. My approach to the specific question before us, which differs from that of the majority, requires me to consider this question; and, as discussed below, our precedents suggest that an outright ban on newsracks on city sidewalks would be constitutional, particularly where (as is true here) ample alternative means of 24-hour distribution of newspapers exist. In any event, the Court’s ruling today cannot be read as any indication to the contrary: cities remain free after today’s decision to enact such bans.
Moreover, the Court expressly rejects the view, heretofore adopted by some lower courts, that any local scheme that seeks to license the placement of newsracks on public property is per se unconstitutional.1 Cities “may require periodic licensing, and may even have special licensing procedures for conduct commonly associated with expression.” Ante, at 760. It is only common sense that cities be allowed to exert some control over those who would permanently appropriate city property for the purpose of erecting a newspaper dispensing device.
My disagreement with the Court is not over the constitutional status of newsracks, or the more specific question of the propriety of the licensing of such newspaper vending devices. The dispute in this case is over a more “technical” question: What is the scope of the peculiar doctrine that governs facial challenges to local laws in the First Amendment area? The majority reads our cases as holding that local licensing laws which have “a close enough nexus to expression, or to conduct commonly associated with expression, to *774pose a real and substantial threat of [an] identified censorship ris[k],” will be considered invalid “whenever [such a law] gives a government official. . . substantial power to discriminate based on the content or viewpoint of speech.” Ante, at 759. This is true, the majority believes, whether or not the speaker can prove that the official’s power has been or will be used against him; indeed, it is true even if the government official indicates a willingness to abjure the use of such power (as is the case here).
It is true that certain licensing laws that “giv[e] a government official . . . substantial power to discriminate based on the content or viewpoint of speech” are unconstitutional on their face — without any showing of actual censorship or discrimination, or even without the potential licensee even making an application for a license. But the sweep of this potent doctrine must be limited in a way that is principled; one that is rooted in our precedents and our history. The Court’s statement that this doctrine applies whenever the license law has “a close . . . nexus to expression, or to conduct commonly associated with expression,” is unduly broad. The doctrine, as I see it, applies only when the specific conduct which the locality seeks to license is protected by the First Amendment. Because the placement of newsracks on city property is not so protected (as opposed to the circulation of newspapers as a general matter), the exception to our usual facial challenge doctrine does not apply here.
f — I ) — I
Our prior cases, and an examination of the case before us, indicate that the Lakewood ordinance is not invalid because it vests “excessive discretion” in Lakewood’s mayor to grant or deny a newsrack permit.
A
The Court has historically been reluctant to entertain facial attacks on statutes, i. e., claims that a statute is invalid in all of its applications. Our normal approach has. been to deter*775mine whether a law is unconstitutional as applied in the particular case before the Court.2 This rule is also the usual approach we follow when reviewing laws that require licenses or permits to engage in business or other activities. In New York ex rel. Lieberman v. Van De Carr, 199 U. S. 552 (1905), for example, plaintiff in error was convicted of selling milk in New York City without a permit. Plaintiff in error claimed before this Court that the licensing law vested arbitrary power in an administrative board to select those who would be permitted to sell milk. This Court’s response was:
“[Prior] cases leave in no doubt the proposition that the conferring of discretionary power upon administrative boards to grant or withhold permission to carry on a trade or business which is the proper subject of regulation within the police power of the state is not vio-lative of rights secured by the Fourteenth Amendment. There is no presumption that the power will be arbitrarily exercised, and when it is shown to be thus exercised against the individual, under sanction of state authority this court has not hesitated to interfere for his protection, when the case has come before it in such manner as to authorize the interference of a Federal court.” Id,., at 562.
There being no showing that the law had been unconstitutionally applied to plaintiff in error, his conviction was affirmed. “One who is required to take out a license will not be heard to complain, in advance of application, that there is a danger of refusal. He should apply and see what hap*776pens.” Highland Farms Dairy, Inc. v. Agnew, 300 U. S. 608, 616-617 (1937) (citation^ omitted). Other cases are to the same effect.3 Thus, the usual rule is that a law requiring permits for specified activities is not unconstitutional because it vests discretion in administrative officials to grant or deny the permit. The Constitution does not require the Court to assume that such discretion will be illegally exercised. Douglas v. Noble, 261 U. S. 165, 170 (1923); Lieberman, supra, at 562.4
There are, however, a few well-established contexts in which the Court has departed from its insistence on an as-applied approach to constitutional adjudication. One of them is where a permit or license is required to engage in expressive activities protected by the First Amendment, and official discretion to grant or deny is not suitably confined. “In the area of freedom of expression it is well established that one has standing to challenge a statute on the ground that it delegates overly broad licensing discretion to an administrative office, whether or not his conduct could be proscribed by a properly drawn statute, and whether or not he applied for a *777license.” Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U. S. 51, 56 (1965).5 It is this line of cases on which the majority draws to support its conclusion that the Lakewood ordinance is unconstitutional on its face. Ante, at 755-758.
The prevailing feature of these exceptional cases, however, is that each of them involved a law that required a license to engage in activity protected by the First Amendment. In each of the cases, the expressive conduct which a city sought to license was an activity which the locality could not prohibit altogether. Streets, sidewalks, and parks are traditional public fora; leafletting, pamphletting, and speaking in such places may be regulated, Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U. S. 569, 574-575 (1941); Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 306-307 (1940); but they may not be entirely forbidden, Jamison v. Texas, 318 U. S. 413 (1943); Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U. S. 444 (1938). .Likewise, in Freedman, supra, at issue was a license requirement that was a prerequisite for any exhibition of a film in the State of Maryland. Id., at 52-53, and n. 1. In all of these cases, the scope of the local license requirement included expressive activity protected by the First Amendment. See also Part II-C, infra.
This is how the cases themselves have defined the scope of Lovell-Freedman doctrine. Such license requirements are struck down only when they affect the “enjoyment of freedoms which the Constitution guarantees.” See Staub v. City of Baxley, 355 U. S. 313, 322 (1958). It is laws “subjecting the exercise of First Amendment freedoms to” license requirements that we have found suspect, see Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, 394 U. S. 147, 150-151 (1969), not merely laws with some amorphous “nexus” to expression.
For example, the Lovell-Freedman line of cases would be applicable here if the city of Lakewood sought to license the distribution of all newspapers in the city, or if it required li*778censes for all stores which sold newspapers. These are obviously newspaper circulation activities which a municipality cannot prohibit and, therefore, any licensing scheme of this scope would have to pass muster under the Lovell-Freedman doctrine. But — and this is critical — Lakewood has not cast so wide a net. Instead, it has sought to license only the placement of newsracks (and other like devices) on city property. As I read our precedents, the Lovell-Freedman line of cases is applicable here only if the Plain Dealer has a constitutional right to distribute its papers by means of dispensing devices or newsboxes, affixed to the public sidewalks. I am not convinced that this is the case.
B
Appellee has a right to distribute its newspapers on the city’s streets, as others have a right to leaflet, solicit, speak, or proselytize in this same public forum area. But this “does not mean that [appellee] can . . . distribute [its newspapers] where, when and how [it] chooses.” See Breard v. Alexandria, 341 U. S. 622, 642 (1951). More specifically, the Plain Dealer’s right to distribute its papers does not encompass the right to take city property — a part of the public forum, as ap-. pellee so vigorously argues — and appropriate it for its own exclusive use, on a semipermanent basis, by means of the erection of a newsbox.6 “The publisher of a newspaper . . . *779has no special privilege to invade the rights and liberties of others,” Associated Press v. NLRB, 301 U. S. 103, 132-133 (1937); these protected “rights of others” have always included the public-at-large’s right to use the public forum for its chosen activities, including free passage of the streets. See Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147, 160 (1939).
From the outset of its contemporary public forum cases, this Court has recognized that city streets and sidewalks “have immemorially been held in trust for use of the public.” Hague v. CIO, 307 U. S. 496, 515 (1939). This means all of the public, and does not create a First Amendment right in newspaper publishers to “cordon” off a portion of the sidewalk in an effort to increase the circulation of their papers. Cf. Schneider, supra, at 160. As this Court wrote long ago, in upholding an ordinance that restricted a telegraph company’s placement of telegraph poles on city property:
“The ordinary traveler, whether on foot or in a vehicle, passes to and fro along the streets, and his use and occupation thereof are temporary and shifting. . . . This use is common to all members of the public, and it is a use open equally to [all] citizens .... But the use made by *780the telegraph company is, in respect to so much of the space as it occupies with its poles, permanent and exclusive. . . . Whatever benefit the public may receive in the way of transportation of messages, that space is, so far as respects its actual use for purposes of a highway and personal travel, wholly lost to the public.” St. Louis v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 148 U. S. 92, 98-99 (1893).
While there is a First Amendment right to publish newspapers, publishers have no right to force municipalities to turn over public property for the construction of a printing facility. There is a First Amendment right to sell books, but we would not accept an argument that a city must allow a bookseller to construct a bookshop — even a small one — on a city sidewalk. The right to leaflet does not create a right to build a booth on city streets from which leafletting can be conducted. Preventing the “taking” of public property for these purposes does not abridge First Amendment freedoms. Just as there is no First Amendment right to operate a bookstore or locate a movie theater however or wherever one chooses notwithstanding local laws to the contrary, see Arcara v. Cloud Books, Inc., 478 U. S. 697 (1986); Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 U. S. 41 (1986), the First Amendment does not create a right of newspaper publishers to take city streets to erect structures to sell their papers.
It may be that newspaper distributors can sell more papers by placing their newsracks on city sidewalks. But those seeking to distribute materials protected by the First Amendment do not have a right to appropriate public property merely because it best facilitates their efforts. “We again reject the ‘notion that First Amendment rights are somehow not fully realized unless they are subsidized by the State.’” Regan v. Taxation with Representation of Wash., 461 U. S. 540, 546 (1983) (quoting Cammarano v. United States, 358 U. S. 498, 515 (1959) (Douglas, J., concurring)). Conse*781quently, a city need not subsidize news distribution activities by giving, selling, or leasing a portion of city property for the erection of newsracks. “The State, no less than a private owner of property, has power to preserve the property under its control for the use to which it is lawfully dedicated.” Adderley v. Florida, 385 U. S. 39, 47 (1966). Preserving public forum space for use by the public generally, as opposed to the exclusive use of one individual or corporation, is obviously one such “lawfully dedicated” use. “The streets belong to the public and are primarily for the use of the public in the ordinary way.” Packard v. Banton, 264 U. S. 140, 144 (1924).
To hold otherwise, and create a First Amendment right of publishers to take city property to erect newsboxes, would ignore the significant governmental interests of cities — like Lakewood — that are threatened by newsrack placements.7 One of these interests, discussed supra, at 780, is keeping the streets and sidewalks free for the use of all members of the public, and not just the exclusive use of any one entity. But this is not the only concern at issue here.
The Court has consistently recognized the important interest that localities have in insuring the safety of persons using *782city streets and public forums. See Heffron v. International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Inc., 452 U. S. 640, 650 (1981); Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U. S. 104, 115 (1972); Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U. S., at 574. In this case, testimony at trial detailed a variety of potential safety risks posed by newsboxes, running the gamut from the obvious to the unimaginable.8 Based on such testimony, the District Court found that newsracks “along the streets, . . . in-creas[e] the probability for accidents and injury.” App. to Juris. Statement A32. This finding was not distúrbed by the Court of Appeals, even as it reversed the District Court’s constitutional ruling.
A third concern is the protection of cities’ recognized esthetic interests. Lakewood and countless other American cities have invested substantial sums of money to renovate their urban centers and commercial districts. Increasingly, *783they find newsracks to be discordant with the surrounding area.9 A majority of this Court found that similar esthetic considerations would be sufficient to justify a content-neutral ban on all outdoor advertising signs, notwithstanding the extent to which such signs convey First Amendment protected messages. See Metromedia, Inc. v. San Diego, 453 U. S. 490, 507-508 (1981) (plurality opinion); id., at 552-553 (Stevens, J., dissenting in part); id., at 559-561 (Burger, C. J., dissenting); id., at 570 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting). This reasoning applies to newsracks as well as billboards. “[T]he city’s interest in attempting to preserve the quality of urban life is one that must be accorded high respect.” Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc., 427 U. S. 50, 71 (1976) (opinion of Stevens, J.). See also City Council of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U. S. 789, 806-807 (1984); Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S. 77 (1949).
We should be especially hesitant to recognize the right appellee claims where, as is the case here, there are “ample alternative channels” available for distributing newspapers. See Arcara, 478 U. S., at 705-706, n. 2; Perry Education Assn. v. Perry Local Educators’ Assn., 460 U. S. 37, 53 (1983); Virginia Pharmacy Bd. v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U. S. 748, 771 (1976). The District Court found that no person in Lakewood lives more than one-quarter mile from a 24-hour newspaper outlet: either a store open all night or a newsbox located on private property.
*784App. to Juris. Statement A27. Home delivery, the means by which appellee distributes the vast majority of its newspapers, id., at A26, is an option as well. The First Amendment does not require Lakewood to make its property available to the Plain Dealer so that it may undertake the most effective possible means of selling newspapers. See Heffron v. International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Inc., supra, at 647.
In sum, I believe that the First Amendment does not create a right of newspaper publishers to take a portion of city property to erect a structure to distribute their papers. There is no constitutional right to place newsracks on city sidewalks over the objections of the city.
C
Because there is no such constitutional right, the predicate for applying the Freedman v. Maryland line of cases, see supra, at 776-777, is not present in this case. Because the Lakewood ordinance does not directly regulate an activity protected by the First Amendment, we should instead take the traditional, as-applied approach to adjudication exemplified by the Lieberman line of cases. Appellee’s facial challenge to the mayor’s discretion under § 901.181(c)(7) should therefore be rejected.
The Court offers three reasons for departing from this time-tested approach for applying the Lovell-Freedman doctrine, and for substituting its new “nexus to expression” test. I consider these three reasons in turn.
(1)
First, the majority seeks support for its rejection of the foregoing analysis by comparing two previous decisions: Saia v. New York, 334 U. S. 568 (1948), and Kovacs v. Cooper, supra. Saia struck down a local ordinance vesting absolute discretion in a local official over permits for the use of sound-amplification trucks; Kovacs upheld a local law which totally *785banned the use of such trucks. Today’s majority states that in Kovacs, Saia was distinguished on grounds that support its position here. Ante, at 764-766.
The majority’s reading of these two cases is flawed for several reasons. First, the “rationale of Kovacs” on which the majority relies was not the Court’s view at all, but rather, an opinion for a three-Justice plurality. See Kovacs, supra, at 78-89 (opinion of Reed, J.). In fact, four other Justices in Kovacs understood the Court’s action in that case in the exact contrary manner — i. e., as being a repudiation of the earlier decision in Saia. See Kovacs, 336 U. S., at 97-98 (Jackson, J., concurring); id., at 101-102 (Black, Douglas, and Rutledge, JJ., dissenting). Thus, the majority’s explanation of how a comparison of Kovacs and Saia support its conclusion rests on a view of those two cases that was rejected by more Justices than accepted it at the time that Kovacs was decided.
An equally plausible reading of Saia is the one that a plurality of Justices took when revisiting the sound-truck question in Kovacs: Saia rested on the “assumption” — later proved erroneous in Kovacs — that a municipality could not ban sound trucks altogether. Saia repeatedly suggests that a “ban” on sound trucks would not pass constitutional muster. See 334 U. S., at 562. Cf. also id., at 559-560, 561. And the Court in Saia indicated that it was moved by its view that sound trucks were “indispensable instruments of effective public speech.” Id, at 561.
Since Saia’s underlying premise was called into question in Kovacs, 336 U. S., at 97-98 (Jackson, J., concurring); id., at 101-102 (Black, J., dissenting), at the very least, the majority’s Saia-Kovacs comparison is a shaky foundation for the departure from prior precedent which the Court now undertakes.
(2)
Second, the Court incorrectly suggests that I rely on the now-discredited “greater-includes-the-lesser” formulation of Justice Holmes, as adopted by this Court in Davis v. Massa*786chusetts, 167 U. S. 43 (1897). Ante, at 762-766. The majority then engages in a detailed analysis of cases having no applicability here whatsoever, ante, at 766-767, to slay this straw man of its own creation.
As defined at its inception, “greater-includes-the-lesser” reasoning holds that where a State or municipality may ban an activity altogether, it is consequently free “to determine under what circumstances such [activity] may be availed of, as the greater power contains the lesser.” See Davis, supra, at 48. But if, for example, a Lakewood ordinance provided for the issuance of newsrack licenses to only those newspapers owned by persons of a particular race, or only to members of a select political party, such a law would be clearly violative of the First Amendment (or some other provision of the Constitution), and would be facially invalid. And if the mayor of Lakewood granted or refused license applications for similar improper reasons, his exercise of the power provided him under §901.181(c)(7) would be susceptible to constitutional attack. Thus, I do not embrace the “greater-includes-the-lesser” syllogism — one that this Court abandoned long ago. Cf. Hague v. CIO, 307 U. S., at 515.
Instead, my view is simply this: where an activity that could be forbidden altogether (without running afoul of the First Amendment) is subjected to a local license requirement, the mere presence of administrative discretion in the licensing scheme will not render it invalid per se. In such a case — which does not involve the exercise of First Amendment protected freedoms — the Lovell-Freedman doctrine does not apply, and our usual rules concerning the permissibility of discretionary local licensing laws (and facial challenges to those laws) must prevail.
(3)
Finally, the Court asserts that I do not understand the nature of the conduct at issue here. Ante, at 768. It is asserted that “[t]he actual ‘activity’ at issue here is the cir*787culation of newspapers, which is constitutionally protected.” Ibid. But of course, this is wrong. Lakewood does not, by its ordinance, seek to license the circulation of newspapers within the city. In fact, the Lakewood ordinance does not even require licenses of all newsracks within the jurisdiction — the many newsracks located within Lakewood on private property are not included within the scope of the city’s ordinance. See App. 373-374. Thus, it is the majority— and not I — that is guilty of “recharacterizing” the activity that Lakewood licenses. The Lakewood ordinance must be considered for what it is: a license requirement for newsracks on city property.
This is why, notwithstanding the Court’s intimations to the contrary, ante, at 766-769, my approach would not change the outcome of our previous cases in this area. In those cases the local law at issue required licenses — not for a narrow category of expressive conduct that could be prohibited — but for a sweeping range of First Amendment protected activity. Thus, the law at issue in Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, 394 U. S., at 149, required a license for “any parade”; the license scheme under attack in Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U. S., at 52-53, and n. 1, applied to all films shown in the State of Maryland; the law at issue in Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U. S., at 451, applied to any distribution of leaflets or pamphlets within the city limits. Surely, even at the extreme level of abstraction at which the Court operates in its opinion, the majority can recognize a difference between the scope and dangers of these laws, and Lakewood’s more focused regulation. See also n. 13, infra.
t — i h — ( L-H
I now address the rule of decision the majority offers.
A
Instead of the relatively clear rule that the Court’s prior cases support, the majority today adopts a more amorphous measure of when the Lovell-Freedman doctrine should apply. *788As I see it, the Court’s new “nexus to expression, or to conduct commonly associated with expression” test is peculiarly troublesome, because it is of uncertain scope and vague expanse.
The Court appears to stop short of saying that any statute that delegates discretionary administrative authority that has the potential to be used to suppress speech is unconstitutional. A great variety of discretionary power may be abused to limit freedom of expression; yet that does not mean that such delegations of power are facially invalid. See Hoffman Estates v. The Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., 455 U. S. 489, 503-504 (1982).10
The new Lakewood ordinance enacted in tandem with §901.181 illustrates this principle well. As discussed, ante, at 753-754, when the District Court invalidated Lakewood’s complete ban on all structures on city property (then § 901.18 of the city code), the city enacted two new ordinances. One, §901.181, provides for licensing newsracks on city property — the subject of this appeal. The second, § 901.18, gives the City Council unlimited discretion to grant or deny applications for all other exclusive uses of city property. App. 266-267. Someone who wishes to apply for permission under §901.18 to erect a soft-drink vending machine on city property may fear that his application will be denied because *789he has engaged in some First Amendment protected activities which are not to the City Council’s liking. These fears may even be substantial, and they may be based on facts eminently provable in a courtroom; e. g., that the applicant opposed a City Councilwoman in hér last election campaign. Yet surely § 901.18 is not invalid on its face merely because it creates the possibility that the discretion accorded therein to the City Council could be abused in the way that the soft-drink vending machine applicant fears. Cf. Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U. S., at 121, n. 50; Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U. S. 365, 395-396 (1926).
Seeking a way to limit its own expansive ruling, the Court provides two concrete examples of instances in which its newly crafted “nexus to expression” rule will not strike down local ordinances that permit discretionary licensing decisions. First, we are told that a law granting unbridled discretion to a mayor to grant licenses for soda machine placements passes constitutional muster because it does not give that official “frequent opportunities to exercise substantial power over the content or viewpoint of the vendor’s speech.” Ante, at 761. How the Court makes this empirical assessment, I do not know. It seems to me that the nature of a vendor’s product — be it newspapers or soda pop — is not the measure of how potent a license law can be in the hands of local officials seeking to control or alter the vendor’s speech. Of course, the newspaper vendor’s speech is likely to be more public, more significant, and more widely known than the soda vendor’s speech — and therefore more likely to incur the wrath of public officials. But in terms of the “usefulness” of the license power to exert control over a licensee’s speech, there is no difference whatsoever between the situation of the soda vendor and the newspaper vendor.11
*790If the Court’s treatment of the soda machine problem is not curious enough, it also “assures” us that its ruling does not invalidate local laws requiring, for example, building permits — even as they apply to the construction of newspaper printing facilities. These laws, we are told, provide “too blunt a censorship instrument to warrant judicial intervention.” Ante, at 761. Thus, local “laws of general application that are not aimed at conduct commonly associated with expression” appear to survive the Court’s decision today. Ante, at 760-761.
But what if Lakewood, following this decision, repeals local ordinance §901.181 (the detailed newsrack permit law) and simply left §901.18 (the general ordinance concerning “any . . . structure or device” on city property) on the books? That section vests absolute discretion (without any of the guidelines found in §901.181) in the City Council to give or withhold permission for the erection of devices on city streets. Because this law is of “general application,” it should survive scrutiny under the Court’s opinion — even as applied to newsracks. If so, the Court’s opinion takes on an odd “the-greater-but-not-the-lesser” quality: the more activities that are subjected to a discretionary licensing law, the more likely that law is to pass constitutional muster.
B
As noted above, our tradition has been to discourage facial challenges, and rather, to entertain constitutional attacks on local laws only as they are applied to the litigants. The facts of this case indicate why that policy is a prudent one.
Most importantly, there could be no allegation in this case that the mayor’s discretion to deny permits actually has been abused to the detriment of the newspaper, for the Plain *791Dealer has not applied for a permit for its newsracks under §901.181. App. to Juris. Statement A30. Indeed, the District Court found that the “Mayor stands ready and willing to permit coin-operated newspaper dispensing devices in the commercial areas of the City” pursuant to the ordinance. Ibid. It also found that the “only reason why the [appellee] has not placed newspaper dispensing devices along the streets of Lakewood where permitted, is that the [appellee] has not applied for such use.” Id., at A32.
Indicative of the true nature of this litigation is the fact that the city of Lakewood has had on the books, since January 1987, an interim ordinance that licenses the placement of newsracks on city property — an ordinance that is free of the constitutional defects challenged here. Eighteen months have passed since the interim ordinance was enacted, and the Plain Dealer apparently still has not applied for a license to place its newsracks on city property.12 Thus, the Court, with a strange rhetorical flourish, belittles the usefulness of judicial review as a tool to control the mayor’s discretion in granting newsrack licenses, because newspaper publishers and their reading public cannot afford to await the results of the judicial process. Ante, at 771. “[N]ewspaper publish*792ers can[not] wait indefinitely for a permit” and “a paper needs public access at a particular time,” we are remonstrated. Ante, at 771-772. Yet the Plain Dealer has eschewed the availability of a wholly constitutional permit for its newsracks for a year and a half.
The Court mentions the risk of censorship, the ever-present danger of self-censorship, and the power of prior restraint to justify the result. See, e. g., ante, at 757-759, 767-768. Yet these fears and concerns have little to do with this case, which involves the efforts.of Ohio’s largest newspaper to place a handful of newsboxes in a few locations in a small suburban community. Even if one accepts the testimony of appellee’s own expert, it seems unlikely that the newsboxes at issue here would increase the Plain Dealer’s circulation within Lakewood by more than a percent or two; the paper’s overall circulation would be affected only by about one one-hundredth of one percent (0.01%). See App. 82-84, 214.
It is hard to see how the Court’s concerns have any applicability here. And it is harder still to see how the Court’s image of the unbridled local censor, seeking to control and direct the content of speech, fits this case. In the case before us, the city of Lakewood declined to appeal an adverse ruling against its ban on newsracks, and instead amended its local laws to permit appellee to place its newsboxes on city property. See id., at 270-274. When the nature of this ordinance was not to the Plain Dealer’s liking, Lakewood again amended its local laws to meet the newspaper’s concerns. See id., at 275. Finally, when the newspaper, still disgruntled, won a judgment against Lakewood from the Court of Appeals, the city once again amended its ordinance to address the constitutional issues. See App. to Brief for Ap-pellee A56-A59. The Court’s David and Goliath imagery concerning the balance of power between the regulated and *793the regulator in this reverse.13 3 ►§ c+I <t> X a <D O GQ W o3 I o 0> w.
HH <1
Because, unlike the Court, I find that the Lakewood ordinance is not invalid by virtue of the discretion it vests in the city’s mayor, I must reach the question whether the law is invalid for the other reasons' the Court of Appeals cited. I conclude that it is not.
A
A similar analysis to the one I suggest in Parts II and III, supra, applies to Lakewood ordinance §901.181(a), concerning the Architectural Review Board. Appellee argues *794that this ordinance provision, like the one giving discretion to the mayor to grant or deny permit applications, vests excessive and unbridled discretion in the Board, and thereby is violative of the First Amendment. But for the reasons that I concluded, supra, at 784, that §901.181 does not directly regulate activity protected by the First Amendment, I think this facial challenge to the Architectural Review Board’s role under the ordinance must fail as the challenge to §901.181(c)(7) did. Section 901.181(a) does not fall simply because the Board may find a way to use its discretion to suppress speech.
The fallacy of the Plain Dealer’s argument to the contrary is exposed by considering its full implications. Under Lakewood Codified Ordinance § 1325.04, the Architectural Review Board has discretion to approve or reject designs for “all new construction . . . within the City.” See App. 386 (emphasis added). If we were to accept the Plain Dealer’s analysis that any potentially speech-suppressing discretion renders a local law facially invalid, we would have to strike § 1325.04 as well: after all, the Board could use its discretion under that ordinance to punish or chill the speech of any person in the city seeking to construct a new building.14 Yet this mere possibility is not sufficient to invalidate § 1325.04. Likewise, the potential for abuse under § 901.181(a) — which simply subjects newsracks to the same architectural review applied to all other structures erected in Lakewood — is not sufficient to invalidate that provision either.
The First Amendment does not grant immunity to the Plain Dealer from the city’s general laws regulating businesses that operate therein. “The publisher of a newspaper *795has no special immunity from the application of general laws.” Associated Press v. NLRB, 301 U. S., at 132; see also, e. g., Citizen Publishing Co. v. United States, 394 U. S. 131, 139 (1969); Oklahoma Press Publishing Co. v. Walling, 327 U. S. 186, 192-193 (1946). The District Court found that Lakewood has applied its architectural review process to all new construction in the city. App. to Juris. Statement A36. According to the city, bookstores, theaters, and churches under construction or renovation have all been required to obtain board approval for their construction. See Brief for Appellant 37-38. To hold that all structure where First Amendment protected activities take place are somehow exempt from this normal local regulation would be anomalous and contrary to our precedents. See Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc., 427 U. S., at 62.
The Court of Appeals, 794 F. 2d 1139, 1146 (CA6 1986), thought it significant that the Board had no specific standards applying to newsrack designs, but rather, had only general architectural standards applicable to “buildings.” Of course, this basis for disapproval is particularly ironic, since the “narro[w] and specific]” focus of §901.181 on the placement of newsracks is one reason why this Court finds that law to be suspect. Ante, at 760. Consequently, with respect to a future ordinance free from the defect the Court finds fault with today, the city of Lakewood finds itself between a rock and a hard place: make the rules newsrack-specific, and be accused of drawing the noose too tightly around First Amendment protected activities; apply more general rules to newsracks, and be told that your regulators lack standards sufficiently specific to pass constitutional muster.
The conundrum is unfortunate. Simply because a newspaper may find new ways to distribute its papers, via semi-permanent structures that are not “buildings,” should not permit the publisher to escape otherwise all-inclusive city regulation. Section 901.181(a) simply takes the rule that applies generally to all new structures in Lakewood and extends it to cover the structures at issue here: newsracks. *796Newsracks have no First Amendment right to be placed on city streets with disregard for these important economic and esthetic concerns, or to contribute to the “visual blight” cities are working so hard to eradicate. See Vincent, 466 U. S., at 810.
Finally, the Court’s opinion provides substantial support for the view that Lakewood’s Architectural Review Board requirement is constitutional. As I noted, supra, at 790, the Court today holds that laws of general application are not invalid due to excessive discretion, even when they are applied to expressive activities. Ante, at 760-761. Since the architectural review requirement is such a law of géneral application, it appears to me that the Court’s opinion implicitly sustains the constitutionality of the imposition of this requirement on appellee’s newsboxes. Moreover, since this portion of the Lakewood ordinance only requires the approval of the Architectural Review Board on a single occasion, at the time of the initial adoption of a particular newsbox design, I think it is clearly encompassed within the Court’s discussion of permissible building permit laws. Ibid.
B
The final disputed provision of the Lakewood ordinance, §901.181(c)(5), requires that newsrack owners indemnify the city for “any and all liability. . . occasioned upon the installation and use” of any newsrack. It also requires newsrack permittees to obtain liability insurance in the amount of $100,000 to cover any such liability.
The city’s reasons for imposing such requirements are obvious. Under Ohio law, a municipality has no sovereign immunity, and “is liable for its negligence in the performance or nonperformance of its acts.” Haverlack v. Portage Homes, Inc., 2 Ohio St. 3d 26, 30, 442 N. E. 2d 749, 752 (1982); cf. Dickerhoof v. Canton, 6 Ohio St. 3d 128, 451 N. E. 2d 1193 (1983). While there is some dispute between the parties as to how substantial is the city’s risk of being held liable for an injury caused by a newsbox located on city property, there *797remains sufficient risk to suggest that avoiding such liability is a legitimate concern of Lakewood’s City Council.
In fact, appellee acknowledges that, standing alone, the city’s indemnification and insurance requirements would be constitutional; the Plain Dealer recognizes that there is no constitutional bar to requiring newspaper distributors to meet such requirements.15 Nor does it argue that such insurance policies are unobtainable, or make the use of news-boxes economically infeasible.16 Rather, appellee argues (and the Court of Appeals foúnd), that this provision is invalid because it applies to newsracks and not other “users” of the public streets. 794 F. 2d, at 1147.
This Court has consistently held that “differential treatment . . . [for] the press ... is presumptively unconstitutional.” See Minneapolis Star & Tribune Co. v. Minnesota Comm’r of Revenue, 460 U. S. 575, 585 (1983). Yet, in this case, I find this argument inapposite and unpersuasive. First, it ignores the obvious difference between those on-street objects that are essential to the public safety and welfare — such as bus shelters, telephone and electric wiring poles, and emergency phone boxes — and the preferred distribution means of a private newspaper company, the Plain Dealer’s newsboxes. Judge Unthank, in concurrence below, recognized the difference between these “public services of a quasi-governmental nature,” and appellee’s newsracks. 794 *798F. 2d, at 1148. I also find the difference to be a significant one.17
Until this litigation ensued, a Lakewood ordinance banned the construction of any new structure on city property. The new ordinances adopted in response to the initial District Court decision below, which allow such structures, do explicitly require insurance from newsrack-permittee holders, while being silent on this question with respect to other potential permittees on public land. Compare § 901.181(c)(5) with § 901.18. But there is nothing in the record to suggest that the city would not require such insurance of. any applicant under §901.18. Cf. Gannett Satellite Information Network, Inc. v. Metropolitan Transportation Authority, 745 F. 2d 767, 773-774 (CA2 1984); see also ante, at 755, n. 3. If the city does begin to treat nonpress permittees more favorably than newsrack permittees, the Plain Dealer may have a valid constitutional challenge to §901.181(c)(5) at that time. But I am unwilling to imply that such will be the city’s practice based on the record before us. See Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 U. S., at 53. Consequently, I would reject appellee’s facial challenge to §901.181(c)(5).
*799V
For the foregoing reasons, I dissent from the Court’s opinion and its judgment in this case. I would reverse the Court of Appeals’ decision invalidating the Lakewood ordinance.

 See, e. g., Minnesota Newspaper Assn. v. Minneapolis, 9 Med. L. Rptr. 2116, 2122-2123 (DC Minn. 1983); Gannett Co. v. City of Rochester, 69 Misc. 2d 619, 330 N. Y. S. 2d 648 (1972).

 See, e. g., Brockett v. Spokane Arcades, Inc., 472 U. S. 491, 501-503 (1985); United States v. Grace, 461 U. S. 171, 175 (1983); Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U. S. 425, 438-439 (1977); Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, Inc. v. Hostetler, 384 U. S. 35, 52 (1966); United States v. Raines, 362 U. S. 17, 20-24 (1960); Watson v. Buck, 313 U. S. 387, 402 (1941).

 See, e. g., Independent Warehouses, Inc. v. Scheele, 331 U. S. 70, 88 (1947); Smith v. Cahoon, 283 U. S. 553, 562 (1931); Douglas v. Noble, 261 U. S. 165, 170 (1923); Plymouth Coal Co. v. Pennsylvania, 232 U. S. 531, 544-545 (1914); Bradley v. Richmond, 227 U. S. 477, 482-483 (1913); Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Richmond, 224 U. S. 160, 168 (1912); Fischer v. St. Louis, 194 U. S. 361, 371 (1904); Baer v. City of Wauwatosa, 716 F. 2d 1117, 1123-1124 (CA7 1983); Spanish International Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 128 U. S. App. D. C. 93, 104, 385 F. 2d 615, 626 (1967); Wallach v. City of Pagedale, 376 F. 2d 671, 674-675 (CA8 1967).

 Confining óur attention to the actual impact of a law upon the complaining party is a policy of restraint that rests upon the time-tested advisability of having concrete, rather than hypothetical, cases before us. As a general proposition, we can arrive at informed judgments only when we have a record showing the actual impact of the challenged statute.
Much the same approach underlies the case-or-eontroversy requirement of Article III.- As-applied adjudication also serves the end of deciding no more than necessary to dispose of the specific case under submission and of avoiding unnecessary confrontations with Congress and state or local legislators. Cf. Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U. S. 288, 346-348 (1936).

 See also, e. g., Secretary of State of Maryland v. Joseph H. Munson Co., 467 U. S. 947, 964, n. 12 (1984); Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, 394 U. S. 147, 151 (1969); Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 536, 557-558 (1965); Staub v. City of Baxley, 355 U. S. 313, 319 (1958).

 Appellee resists this “characterization” of its placement of newsboxes on city property, arguing that it is not seeking to “ren[t]”!,or have “permanently set aside” portions of the sidewalk for its newsracks. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 37, 47. Rather, appellee contends, it is merely seeking to exercise its “First Amendment right” to distribute newspapers by means of a newsrack, “the mechanical cousin” of the traditional means of selling papers on city streets, the “newsboy.” See Brief for Appellee 10; cf. NLRB v. Hearst Publications, Inc., 322 U. S. 111, 115-116 (1944).
This “characterization” of its activities is unpersuasive. While news-boxes may not be “permanent” structures in the way that buildings are, they are not a peripatetic presence either. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 37-38; cf. McDonald v. Gannett Publications, 121 Misc. 2d 90, 90-91, 467 N. Y. S. 2d 300, 301 (1983); Editor & Publisher, Apr. 9, 1983, p. 8., col. 1 (discuss*779ing “bolting” of newsracks to city sidewalks). Here, the District Court found that the “placement of a newspaper dispensing device on property is normally of a permanent nature, the device generally occupying a specific portion of property for months or years.” App. to Juris. Statement A30-A31.
There is little doubt that if a State were to place an object of the size, weight, and permanence of a newsrack on private property, this “physical occupation” would constitute a “taking” of that property. See Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U. S. 419, 427-430, 434-435 (1982); Lovett v. West Virginia Central Gas Co., 65 W. Va. 739, 742-743, 65 S. E. 196, 197-198 (1909); Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. v. Webb, 393 S. W. 2d 117, 121 (Mo. App. 1965). The character of the newsrack’s intrusion on city sidewalks is not lessened by the fact that the property here is public, the occupation is by a private party, or that the purpose of the “taking” is the communication of ideas. See generally St. Louis v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 148 U. S. 92, 98-99 (1893) (discussed in text infra this page and 780).

 The conflict between cities’ efforts to protect important public interests and the desire of publishers to place newsracks on city property no doubt accounts for the recent spate of litigation in the lower courts over the constitutionality of city regulation of newsracks. See, e. g., Gannett Satellite Information Network, Inc. v. Metropolitan Transportation Authority, 745 F. 2d 767 (CA2 1984); Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Hallandale, 734 F. 2d 666 (CA11 1984); Providence Journal Co. v. City of Newport, 665 F. Supp. 107 (RI 1987); Gannett Satellite Information Network, Inc. v. Norwood, 579 F. Supp. 108 (Mass. 1984); City of New York v. American School Publications, Inc., 69 N. Y. 2d 576, 509 N. E. 2d 311 (1987); Burlington v. New York Times Co., 148 Vt. 275, 532 A. 2d 562 (1987); News Printing Co. v. Totowa, 211 N. J. Super. 121, 511 A. 2d 139 (1986). See also Ball, Extra! Extra! Read All About It: First Amendment Problems in the Regulation of Coin-Operated Newspaper Vending Machines, 19 Colum. J. L. & Soc. Probs. 183, 185-187 (1985).

 A city official testifying at trial reported numerous incidents where objects located in the sidewalk areas where appellee wishes to erect its newsboxes — signposts, signal poles, and utility poles — were hit by cars, bicycles, or pedestrians. App. 144-145. A vehicle may strike a newsrack on a city sidewalk, injuring its occupants or passersby. Cf. Tua v. Brentwood Motor Coach Co., 371 Pa. 570, 92 A. 2d 209 (1952). Cars may stop so that their drivers can purchase papers from newsracks, increasing the traffic hazards of city driving. App. 89, 124-128.
Other testimony at trial and exhibits introduced there described news-racks restricting pedestrian traffic, blocking ramps for the handicapped, or being too near fire hydrants. Id., at 151-154; Defendant’s Exs. GG-1, GG-7, GG-9, App. 391-393. Even a one-on-one encounter with a seemingly benign newsrack has its risks. Cf. McDermott v. Engstrom, 81 So. 2d 553 (Fla. 1955). Indeed, appellee’s newspaper reported recently that a man had received a serious electrical shock when he approached a newsrack, apparently resulting from the fact that the bolts used to anchor the newsrack to the ground had penetrated an electrical power line. See Are These Streets for Walking?, The Plain Dealer, July 3, 1987, p. 12-A, cols. 1-2; see also N. Y. Times, Nov. 14, 1986, p. A14, col. 5; Editor & Publisher, Apr. 16, 1983, p. 13, cols. 1-2.

 One article introduced at trial in this case discussed growing frustration among local officials with rapidly escalating numbers of newsracks on city streets. See Longhini, Coping with High-Tech Headaches, 50 Planning Contents 31-32 (Mar. 1984). Esthetic problems are among the chief complaints. See id., at 31.
Many other accounts have quoted city officials and city residents expressing dismay over newspaper distributors’ seeming disregard for local esthetic concerns and standards. See, e. g., Editor & Publisher, Sept. 8, 1984, p. 11, cols. 1-3; N. Y. Times, Aug. 22,1984, p. A12, cols. 3-5; Editor & Publisher, May 28, 1983, p. 43, col. 1.

 For example, the power to hire and fire public employees can be abused to suppress discussion on matters of public concern, see, e. g., Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U. S. 378 (1987), but that does not render facially invalid all laws that give public employers discretion to hire and fire. The plenary power given state public utility commissions to regulate local utilities too can be misused to infringe on protected speech rights, see Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. Public Utilities Comm’n of Cal., 475 U. S. 1, 10-15 (1986); Consolidated Edison Co. ofN. Y. v. Public Service Comm’n of N. Y., 447 U. S. 530, 533-535 (1980), but that does not render the statutes granting such regulatory power facially infirm. Even the power to grant or deny liquor licenses can be abused in violation of the First Amendment, cf. Reed v. Village of Shorewood, 704 F. 2d 943, 949-951 (CA7 1983), but this does not per se invalidate all local liquor laws.

 Indeed, in practical terms, if two businesses contemplated the prospect of standing before Lakewood’s officials to seek vending machine permits — a sole proprietorship seeking a license for a soda machine that is the only source of the owner’s income, and the Plain Dealer Publishing Co. seeking *790licenses for newsracks — I have little doubt about which applicant would be more likely to feel constrained to alter its expressive conduct in anticipation of the encounter.

 The discussion of the interim ordinance at oral argument highlights this point:
“QUESTION: Well, then, while [the interim] ordinance is in effect, have you gone ahead and installed some boxes?
“MR. GARNER [Appellees’ Counsel]: No,- we have not, Your Honor.
“QUESTION: Why not?
“MR. GARNER: We thought, as I suggested earlier, we think this is a very important case, and from the Plain Dealer’s immediate standpoint certainly—
“QUESTION: In other words, you’d rather win the lawsuit then get the boxes out there.
“MR. GARNER: Yes, that’s correct, Your Honor. . . .” Tr. of Oral Arg. 43-44.
See also n. 13, infra (comparing this case to Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U. S. 51 (1965), and Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, 394 U. S. 147 (1969)).

 It should be noted that several aspects of the particular ordinance at issue here diminish the possibility that it will result in the general abuses that the majority fears. These factors also distinguish the Lakewood ordinance from the local licensing laws under consideration in the cases that the Court relies on it its opinion.
First, unlike many regulatory schemes we have struck down in the past, ef., e. g., Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, supra, at 149-150, 153, 157-158, §901.181 requires that the mayor state the reasons for any denial of a newsrack permit application. This statement of reasons should facilitate review of the mayor’s decision, and help to insure that it does not rest on an unconstitutional rationale.
Second, the availability of such review of mayoral decisions is another distinguishing aspect of the ordinance. Cf., e. g., Staub v. City of Baxley, 355 U. S., at 325. Section 901.181(e), allows (in the first instance) appeal to the City Council of any unfavorable mayoral decision. Then, if this appeal is unsuccessful, a dissatisfied applicant can seek relief from the Ohio courts under state law. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §2506.01 et seq. (Supp. 1987). These appeals provide assurance that any abuse of the mayor’s discretion under the ordinance is unlikely to go unremedied.
Finally, the Court ignores the fact that the license that appellee seeks is not for conducting an activity (such as showing films or organizing a parade) for which a “most propitious opportunity for exhibition [may] pas[s],” Freedman, supra, at 61, but rather, for the erection of a semi-permanent structure on city property. Thus, the administrative and judicial appeals processes made available by city and state laws can serve as a more effective check on the mayor’s decisionmaking, with less of a burden on the permit-applicant, than was the case in Freedman or Shuttlesworth.

 Not only would Lakewood’s ordinance fall to such a challenge, but so too would countless other local laws that grant Architectural Review Boards substantial discretion to approve the construction plans of applicants who may fear reprisal for the exercise of their First Amendment rights, or who wish to construct some structure in which First Amendment protected activities will take place. See App. B to Brief for National Institute of Municipal Law Officers as Amicus Curiae.

 The following excerpt from oral argument makes this point clear:
“QUESTION: [Y]ou assert that it is not possible under the First Amendment for the city to require indemnity insurance for those devices? I think that is a remarkable proposition.
“MR. GARNER [Appellee’s Counsel]: No, I am not suggesting that, Your Honor. No. No, I am not suggesting that. ...” Tr. of Oral Arg. 48.

 Nor could the Plain Dealer so argue. Lakewood introduced as exhibits at trial copies of $1 million liability insurance policies (10 times the amount required by ordinance § 901.181(c)(5)) that the Plain Dealer obtained for the benefit of 11 other cities in Ohio — including the city of Cleveland— where it has located newsracks on public property. App. 401.

 In addition, it may be beyond Lakewood’s control to impose indemnity and insurance requirements on those entities that have structures on public property that predate the city’s recent legislation. According to appellant, many of these placements of utility poles, signal boxes, and the like are on property obtained by utilities from the city via easement grants several decades old. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 28.
The city contended at argument (without dispute from the Plain Dealer) that it is Lakewood’s policy to place indemnification and insurance requirements in all city rental contracts at this time. See ibid. Henceforth, then, the pre-existing nonindemnifying structures on city property will become the “isolated exceptions and not the rule.” See Minneapolis Star & Tribune Co. v. Minnesota Comm’r of Revenue, 460 U. S. 575, 583, n. 5 (1983); cf. Oklahoma Press Publishing Co. v. Walling, 327 U. S. 186, 193-194 (1946). Any future discriminatory application of what the city claims to be its current, uniform policy would, of course, be unconstitutional. See Minneapolis Star, supra, at 583-584.