Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 1986

City of Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc.

475 U.S. 41 | 106 S. Ct. 925 | 89 L. Ed. 2d 29 | 1986 U.S. LEXIS 2

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Takeaway

In short, this case permits cities to zone adult theaters based on their asserted secondary effects under intermediate time, place, and manner review, so long as they reasonably rely on relevant evidence and leave reasonable locations for the businesses to operate.

Background

Renton, Washington, enacted an ordinance barring adult motion-picture theaters from locating within 1,000 feet of any residential zone, dwelling, church, park, or school. The ordinance defined adult theaters by their emphasis on specified sexual activities or anatomical areas. When enacted, Renton had no adult-entertainment businesses, but the City Council relied on Seattle's experience and studies concerning the adverse effects associated with adult theaters.

Playtime Theatres and Sea-First Properties bought two downtown theaters intending to show adult films. Because both theaters lay in the prohibited area, they sought declaratory and injunctive relief under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The District Court upheld the ordinance and entered summary judgment for Renton. The Ninth Circuit reversed, concluding that the ordinance substantially burdened First Amendment interests and that Renton could not rely on other cities' experience instead of proving adverse effects in Renton itself. The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal but treated the papers as a petition for certiorari, granted review, and reversed.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether the Court had jurisdiction to review the Ninth Circuit's remand judgment.

Holding

Yes. Although the Court did not decide whether appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1254(2) extended to this nonfinal judgment, it could review the case through certiorari jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 2103.

Reasoning

The Ninth Circuit had remanded the case to the District Court, raising a question whether the appeal was reviewable as a nonfinal judgment under § 1254(2). The Court found it unnecessary to resolve that question because § 2103 independently permitted certiorari review in this procedural setting.

Following its practice in comparable cases, the Court dismissed the statutory appeal, treated the jurisdictional papers as a petition for certiorari, and granted the writ.

Issue #2

Whether Renton's adult-theater zoning ordinance was a content-based speech restriction subject to strict scrutiny or a content-neutral time, place, and manner regulation.

Holding

The ordinance was properly treated as a content-neutral time, place, and manner regulation because it targeted the secondary effects of adult theaters, not the content of adult films.

Reasoning

The ordinance did not prohibit adult films or ban adult theaters from Renton. It regulated only where adult theaters could locate, much like the zoning measure upheld in Young v. American Mini Theatres. That made it a location-based regulation subject to the time, place, and manner framework.

Although the ordinance distinguished adult theaters from other theaters by reference to sexually explicit content, its justification was unrelated to suppressing the films' message. Renton sought to prevent crime, preserve property values and retail trade, and protect neighborhoods and urban quality of life from the asserted secondary effects of adult theaters.

The Ninth Circuit erred by treating any improper legislative motive as fatal. Under United States v. O'Brien, a court ordinarily will not invalidate an otherwise constitutional law based on speculation about the motives of individual legislators. The District Court's undisturbed finding that Renton's predominant concern was secondary effects adequately established content neutrality.

The Court emphasized that a content-neutral regulation is one justified without reference to the content of regulated speech. Because Renton was responding to the effects of adult-theater operations on surrounding areas rather than disfavoring a particular viewpoint or message, the ordinance met that definition.

Issue #3

Whether Renton had established a substantial governmental interest and could rely on studies and experience from other cities rather than conducting its own local studies.

Holding

Yes. Preserving the quality of urban life and combating the secondary effects of adult theaters are substantial governmental interests, and Renton could reasonably rely on Seattle's experience and studies.

Reasoning

Young recognized that preserving the quality of urban life is an important and substantial municipal interest. Renton's asserted concerns—crime, neighborhood blight, declining property values, and harm to commercial areas—were the same kinds of secondary effects that supported the zoning regulation in Young.

The First Amendment did not require Renton to conduct new, city-specific studies before legislating. A city may rely on evidence generated by other cities if it reasonably believes that evidence is relevant to the local problem it seeks to address.

Renton had relied heavily on Seattle's experience, including findings summarized by the Washington Supreme Court in Northend Cinema. Those findings described extensive evidence that adult theaters harmed nearby residential neighborhoods and community-improvement efforts. Seattle's use of a different zoning remedy did not undermine the relevance of its identification of the underlying secondary effects.

Issue #4

Whether the ordinance was narrowly tailored to Renton's interests and left reasonable alternative avenues for adult-film expression.

Holding

Yes. The ordinance targeted adult theaters associated with the identified secondary effects and left a reasonable opportunity to operate such theaters within Renton.

Reasoning

Renton could choose either to disperse adult theaters or effectively concentrate them in designated areas. The Court would not second-guess the city's choice among reasonable zoning solutions to serious land-use problems.

The ordinance was not invalid merely because it did not regulate every adult-oriented business. At the time of enactment, Renton had no other adult businesses operating or planning to operate in the city. The city could address the anticipated problems of adult theaters first and later regulate other businesses if they were shown to cause similar effects.

The ordinance left approximately 520 acres—more than five percent of Renton's land area—available for adult-theater sites. The District Court found this land ample and accessible, including industrial, warehouse, office, and shopping areas served by roads and highways.

The First Amendment required Renton to provide a reasonable opportunity for adult theaters to open and operate; it did not require the city to ensure commercially ideal sites, bargain prices, or immunity from ordinary real-estate competition. The claimed difficulty of finding desirable available property therefore did not establish a constitutional violation.

Dissents

Justice Brennan

Reasoning

Justice Brennan, joined by Justice Marshall, maintained that the ordinance was content based on its face. It imposed special location limits exclusively on theaters showing adult films while leaving ordinary theaters and other adult businesses, such as bars and bookstores, unregulated. A secondary-effects rationale may supply a reason to regulate, he argued, but it does not erase the ordinance's content-based classification.

In his view, the ordinance's underinclusiveness was especially revealing. Renton had not explained why adult theaters, but not other businesses with assertedly similar secondary effects, warranted regulation. The ordinary rule allowing legislatures to address problems one step at a time has less force when the classification turns on the subject matter of protected expression.

Justice Brennan also found Renton's claimed secondary-effects purpose inadequately supported. The City Council conducted no local studies, heard no expert testimony, and preserved no evidence showing how a theater would harm the particular schools, churches, parks, or residences covered by the ordinance. The post-litigation amendment reciting findings about secondary effects appeared, in his view, to be a conclusory and suspiciously timed effort to justify the restriction.

Renton's general reliance on Seattle and Detroit did not cure that evidentiary gap. Those cities had studied different conditions and adopted different regulatory solutions; their experience did not establish that Renton's particular 1,000-foot restrictions were necessary for Renton's particular problems. A content-based law therefore could not survive strict scrutiny because Renton had not shown that it was precisely drawn to serve a compelling interest.

Even if analyzed as content neutral, Justice Brennan concluded, the ordinance failed intermediate scrutiny. The city had not sufficiently substantiated a significant interest, and the supposed 520 acres of available land included occupied or unsuitable sites. By confining theaters to areas that were largely unavailable or impractical, the ordinance could effectively deprive speakers of a reasonable opportunity to exhibit constitutionally protected films.