First Amendment & Adult Establishments

The city has drafted a two-part ordinance. The first component addresses zoning issues. Businesses offering adult entertainment would be limited to commercial and industrial areas. No such establishment would be allowed within 500 feet of a residential area or another adult business. Moreover, no adult business could be within 700 feet of any house of worship, school, park, or beach. These rules would apply to adult bookstores, novelty stores, video stores, movie theaters, arcades, and live entertainment, which is what MeinzerÆs establishment offers.

The second component addresses the conduct of entertainers in establishments such as MeinzerÆs. The ordinance would prohibit nude dancers from coming within 10 feet of patrons, and prohibit them from touching patrons in any way.

Meinzer argues that the First Amendment rights of him and his dancers would be infringed in two ways. First, the limitations on his dancers constitutes content discrimination, which almost always violates the Constitution. The restriction is designed to muzzle lap dancers and their message that sex is healthy and not shameful. Second, the entire ordinance is an unlawful attempt to silence him

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success (Gunther, 1194). Therefore, Santa BarbaraÆs zoning ordinance almost certainly would survive judicial scrutiny. Santa Barbara drafted the law to protect the ôdecency, morality, and economic viability of the Santa Barbara waterfront area.ö Similar concerns were voiced by Renton. Thus, the law furthers substantial governmental interests (maintenance of neighborhoods, prevention of crime, etc.). In addition, other channels are open to Meiznerùhe can put his business in another part of the city. Moreover, cities do not need extensive social science data to support their claims about secondary effects; simple assumptions about the impact of adult establishments on the neighborhood will suffice, just as they did for Renton. As Rehnquist wrote, ôIn our view, the First Amendment requires only that Renton refrain from effectively denying respondents a reasonable opportunity to open and operate an adult theater within the city, and the ordinance before us easily meets this requirement.ö Souter wrote in Barnes ôthat legislation seeking to combat the secondary effects of adult entertainment need not await localized proof of those effectsà[the state can] reasonably conclude that forbidding nude entertainment of the type here
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Approximate Word count = 2244
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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