10-18-1999 Planning Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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Ambassador Books & Video, fnc. v. City of Little Rock. Arkansas. 20 F.3d 858 (8th Cir. 1994). cert, denied. 63 U.S.L.W. 3221 (Oct. 3, 1994). FACTS; ISSUE: Operators of an adult bookstore and an adult arcade sued the City of Little Rock, Arkansas, challenging the constitutionality of the City's zoning ordinance, which restricted adult businesses to certain areas of the city. The City had considered reports from other cities detailing the negative secondary effects of adult businesses, then had drafted its ordinance to prohibit such businesses from operating with 750 feet of religious facilities, schools, residential zones, public parks, medical facilities, historical districts or places, and other adult businesses. The ordinance established a three-year amortization period for adult businesses existing in violation of the location and spacing restrictions. The plaintiffs challenged the City's motivations in adopting the ordinance based in part on a memo written by the City Attorney stating the intent to shut down the adult businesses. is the City's zoning ordinance unconstitutional, as a violation of the plaintiff's First Amendment or due process rights, or as a bill of attainder? HOLDING:The City's zoning ordinance is constitutional; it does not violate the First Amendment or deny plaintiff's due process, nor is it an unlawful bill of attainder. RATIONALE: The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Little Rock ordinance did not violate the First Amendment because it did not prohibit adult businesses from operating altogether but merely limited their location, and because it targeted the secondary effects of such businesses rather than their content. The court refused to "look behind the legislative findings and policy statements to attempt to discern the hidden (as distinguished from the stated) purpose of the legislation," rejecting the plaintiffs' argument that the City Attorney's stated intent to shut down adult businesses showed the ordinance was content-based. The court ruled that the ordinance permitted reasonable alternative avenues of communication, in that there were 97 available relocation sites for adult businesses, and it rejected plaintiffs' argument that the cost of relocation would b« prohibitive on grounds that, under the First Amendment and applicable case law, "the cost factor is unimportant." The plaintiffs' due process challenge also was rejected, on grounds that a business has no absolute right to continue operating at a particular location and the ordinance provided for a three-year amortization A-3