2005/06/15 Council Agenda Packet

App. B / Adult Businesses major restrictions on sexually oriented businesses: distanc- ing from specified uses, prevention of concentration and amortization. It prohibited a sexually oriented business from operating within 600 feet of districts zoned for residential or office -residences, a church, state -licensed day care facility and certain public -schools. It forbade an adults -only facility from operating within 600 feet of any other adults -only facility. Finally, the ordinance required existing sexually oriented entertainment establishments to conform to its provisions by moving to a new location, if necessary, within four years. The Eighth Circuit ruled that the Minneapolis ordinance created restrictions too severe to be upheld under the Young decision. It would have required all five of the city's sexually oriented theaters and between seven and nine of the city's ten sexually oriented bookstores to relocate and would have required these facilities to compete with another 18 adult - type establishments (saunas, massage parlors and "rap" parlors) for a maximum of 12 relocation sites. The effective result of enforcing the ordinance would be a substantial reduction in the number of adult bookstores and theaters, and no new adult bookstores or theaters would be able to open, the Court concluded. Alexander, supra, 698 F.2d at 938. In Renton, supra, the United States Supreme Court adopted a clearer standard under which regulation of sexu- ally oriented businesses could be tested and upheld. The Court upheld an ordinance prohibiting adult movie theaters from locating within 1,000 feet of any residential zone, sin- gle- or multiple -family dwelling, church, park or school. Justice Rehnquist, writing for a Court majority that in- cluded Justices Stevens and Powell, stated that the Renton ordinance did not ban adult theaters altogether and that, therefore, it was "properly analyzed as a form of time, place and manner regulation." Id. at 46, 106 S. Ct. at 928. When time, place and manner regulations are "content -neutral" and not enacted "for the purpose of restricting speech on the 41 - Minnesota Attorney General's Report / App. B basis of its content," they are "acceptable so long as they are designed to serve a substantial governmental interest and do not unreasonably limit alternative avenues of communi- cation," Rehnquist stated. Id. He found the Renton ordinance to be content -neutral because it was not aimed at the content of films shown at adult theaters. Rather, the city's "predomi- nant concerns" were with the secondary effects of the the- aters. Id. at 47, 106 S. Ct. at 929 (emphasis in original). Once a time, place or manner regulation is determined to be content -neutral, "[tjhe appropriate inquiry ... is whether the ... ordinance is designed to serve a substantial govern- mental interest and allows for reasonable avenues of com- munication," Rehnquist wrote for the Court. Id. at 60, 106 S. Ct. at 930. The Supreme Court found that Renton's "interest in pre- serving the quality of urban life" is a `vital" governmental interest. The substantiality of that interest was in no way diminished by the fact that Renton "relied heavily" on stud- ies of the secondary effects of adult entertainment estab- lishments by Seattle and the experiences of other cities, Rehnquist added. Id, at 61, 106 S. Ct. at 930-31. The First Amendment does not require a city, before enacting such an ordinance, to conduct new studies or produce evidence independent of that already generated by other cities, so long as whatever evidence the city relies upon is reasonably believed to be relevant to the problem that the city addressee. That was the case here. Nor is our holding affected by the fact that Seattle ultimately chose a different method of adult theater zoning than that chosen by Renton, since Seattle's choice of a different remedy to combat the secondary effects of adult theaters does not call into question either Seattle's identification of those secondary effects or the relevance of Seattle's experience to Renton. Id. at 61-62, 106 S. Ct. at 931. Rehnquist's inquiry then addressed the means chosen to further Renton's substantial interest and inquired into 413 CIA 0 0 cx w