California v. LaRue

409 U.S. 109, 93 S. Ct. 390, 34 L. Ed. 2d 342, 1972 U.S. LEXIS 128

Opinions

MR. Justice Rehnquist

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Appellant Kirby is the director of the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, an administrative agency vested by the California Constitution with primary authority for the licensing of the sale of alcoholic beverages in that State, and with the authority to suspend or revoke any such license if it determines that its continuation would be contrary to public welfare or morals. Art. XX, § 22, California Constitution. Appellees include holders of various liquor licenses issued by appellant, and dancers at premises operated by such licensees. In 1970 the Department promulgated rules regulating the type of entertainment that might be presented in bars and nightclubs that it licensed. Appellees then brought this action in the United States District Court for the Central District of California under the provisions of 28 U. S. C. §§ 1331, 1343, 2201, 2202, and 42 U. S. C. § 1983. A three-judge court was convened in accordance with 28 U. S. C. §§2281 and 2284, and the majority of that court held that substantial portions of the regulations conflicted with the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.¹

Concerned with the progression in a few years’ time from “topless” dancers to “bottomless” dancers and other forms of “live entertainment” in bars and nightclubs that it licensed, the Department heard a number of witnesses on this subject at public hearings held prior to the promulgation of the rules. The majority opinion of the District Court described the testimony in these words:

“Law enforcement agencies, counsel and owners of licensed premises and investigators for the Department testified. The story that unfolded was a sordid one, primarily relating to sexual conduct between dancers and customers. . . 326 F. Supp. 348, 352.

References to the transcript of the hearings submitted by the Department to the District Court indicated that in licensed establishments where “topless” and “bottomless” dancers, nude entertainers, and films displaying sexual acts were shown, numerous incidents of legitimate concern to the Department had occurred. Customers were found engaging in oral copulation with women entertainers; customers engaged in public masturbation; and customers placed rolled currency either directly into the vagina of a female entertainer, or on the bar in order that she might pick it up herself. Numerous other forms of contact between the mouths of male customers and the vaginal areas of female performers were reported to have occurred.

Prostitution occurred in and around such licensed premises, and involved some of the female dancers. Indecent exposure to young girls, attempted rape, rape itself, and assaults on police officers took place on or immediately adjacent to such premises.

At the conclusion of the evidence, the Department promulgated the regulations here challenged, imposing standards as to the type of entertainment that could be presented in bars and nightclubs that it licensed. Those portions of the regulations found to be unconstitutional by the majority of the District Court prohibited the following kinds of conduct on licensed premises:

(a) The performance of acts, or simulated acts, of “sexual intercourse, masturbation, sodomy, bestiality, oral copulation, flagellation or any sexual acts which are prohibited by law”;

(b) The actual or simulated “touching, caressing or fondling on the breast, buttocks, anus or genitals”;

(c) The actual or simulated ^'displaying of the pubic hair, anus, vulva or genitals”;

(d) The permitting by a licensee of “any person to remain in or upon the licensed premises who exposes to public view any portion of his or her genitals or anus”; and, by a companion section,

(e) The displaying of films or pictures depicting acts a live performance of which was prohibited by the regulations quoted above. Rules 143.3 and 143.4.²

Shortly before the effective date of the Department's regulations, appellees unsuccessfully sought discretionary review of them in both the State Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of California. The Department then joined with appellees in requesting the three-judge District Court to decide the merits of appellees’ claims that the regulations were invalid under the Federal Constitution.³

The District Court majority upheld the appellees’ claim that the regulations in question unconstitutionally abridged the freedom of expression guaranteed to them by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. It reasoned that the state regulations had to be justified either as a prohibition of obscenity in accordance with the Both line of decisions in this Court (Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476 (1957)), or else as a regulation of “conduct” having a communicative element in it under the standards laid down by this Court in United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367 (1968). Concluding that the regulations would bar some entertainment that could not be called obscene under the Roth line of cases, and that the governmental interest being furthered by the regulations did not meet the tests laid down in O’Brien, the court enjoined the enforcement of the regulations. 326 F. Supp. 348. We noted probable jurisdiction. 404 U. S. 999.

The state regulations here challenged come to us, not in the context of censoring a dramatic performance in a theater, but rather in a context of licensing bars and nightclubs to sell liquor by the drink. In Seagram & Sons v. Hostetter, 384 U. S. 35, 41 (1966), this Court said:

"Consideration of any state law regulating intoxicating beverages must begin with the Twenty-first Amendment, the second section of which provides that: 'The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.’ ”

While the States, vested as they are with general police power, require no specific grant of authority in the Federal Constitution to legislate with respect to matters traditionally within the scope of the police power, the broad sweep of the Twenty-first Amendment has been recognized as conferring something more than the normal state authority over public health, welfare, and morals. In Hostetter v. Idlewild Liquor Corp., 377 U. S. 324, 330 (1964), the Court reaffirmed that by reason of the Twenty-first Amendment “a State is totally unconfined by traditional Commerce Clause limitations when it restricts the importation of intoxicants destined for use, distribution, or consumption within its borders.” Still earlier, the Court stated in State Board v. Young’s Market Co., 299 U. S. 59, 64 (1936):

“A classification recognized by the Twenty-first Amendment cannot be deemed forbidden by the Fourteenth.”

These decisions did not go so far as to hold or say that the Twenty-first Amendment supersedes all other provisions of the United States Constitution in the area of liquor regulations. In Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U. S. 433 (1971), the fundamental notice and hearing requirement of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was held applicable to Wisconsin’s statute providing for the public posting of names of persons who had engaged in excessive drinking. But the case for upholding state regulation in the area covered by the Twenty-first Amendment is undoubtedly strengthened by that enactment:

“Both the Twenty-first Amendment and the Commerce Clause are parts of the same Constitution. Like other provisions of the Constitution, each must be considered in the light of the other, and in the context of the issues and interests at stake in any concrete case.” Hostetter v. Idlewild Liquor Corp., supra, at 332.

A common element in the regulations struck down by the District Court appears to be the Department’s conclusion that the sale of liquor by the drink and lewd or naked dancing and entertainment should not take place in bars and cocktail lounges for which it has licensing responsibility. Based on the evidence from the hearings that it cited to the District Court, and mindful of the principle that in legislative rulemaking the agency may reason from the particular to the general, Assigned Car Cases, 274 U. S. 564, 583 (1927), we do not think it can be said that the Department’s conclusion in this respect was an irrational one.

Appellees insist that the same results could have been accomplished by requiring that patrons already well on the way to intoxication be excluded from the licensed premises. But wide latitude as to choice of means to accomplish a permissible end must be accorded to the state agency that is itself the repository of the State’s power under the Twenty-first Amendment. Seagram & Sons v. Hostetter, supra, at 48. Nothing in the record before us or in common experience compels the conclusion that either self-discipline on the part of the customer or self-regulation on the part of the bartender could have been relied upon by the Department to secure compliance with such an alternative plan of regulation. The Department’s choice of a prophylactic solution instead of one that would have required its own personnel to judge individual instances of inebriation cannot, therefore, be deemed an unreasonable one under the holdings of our prior cases. Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483, 487-488 (1955).

We do not disagree with the District Court’s determination that these regulations on their face would proscribe some forms of visual presentation that would not be found obscene under Roth and subsequent decisions of this Court. See, e. g., Sunshine Book Co. v. Summerfield, 355 U. S. 372 (1958), rev’g per curiam, 101 U. S. App. D. C. 358, 249 F. 2d 114 (1957). But we do not believe that the state regulatory authority in this case was limited to either dealing with the problem it confronted within the limits of our decisions as to obscenity, or in accordance with the limits prescribed for dealing with some forms of communicative conduct in O’Brien, supra.

Our prior cases have held that both motion pictures and theatrical productions are within the protection of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. In Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U. S. 495 (1952), it was held that motion pictures are “included within the free speech and free press guaranty of the First and Fourteenth Amendments,” though not “necessarily subject to the precise rules governing any other particular method of expression.” Id., at 502-503. In Schacht v. United States, 398 U. S. 58, 63 (1970), the Court said with respect to theatrical productions:

“An actor, like everyone else in our country, enjoys a constitutional right to freedom of speech, including the right openly to criticize the Government during a dramatic performance.”

But as the mode of expression moves from the printed page to the commission of public acts that may themselves violate valid penal statutes, the scope of permissible state regulations significantly increases. States may sometimes proscribe expression that is directed to the accomplishment of an end that the State has declared to be illegal when such expression consists, in part, of “conduct” or “action,” Hughes v. Superior Court, 339 U. S. 460 (1950); Giboney v. Empire Storage Co., 336 U. S. 490 (1949).⁴ In O’Brien, supra, the Court suggested that the extent to which “conduct” was protected by the First Amendment depended on the presence of a “communicative element,” and stated:

“We cannot accept the view that an apparently limitless variety of conduct can be labeled 'speech’ whenever the person engaging in the conduct intends thereby to express an idea.” 391 U. S., at 376.

The substance of the regulations struck down prohibits licensed bars or nightclubs from displaying, either in ^the form of movies or live entertainment, “performances” ■ that partake more of gross sexuality than of com- • munication. While we agree that at least some of the performances to which these regulations address themselves are within the limits of the constitutional protection of freedom of expression, the critical fact is that California has not forbidden these performances across the board. It has merely proscribed such performances in establishments that it licenses to sell liquor by the drink.

Viewed in this light, we conceive the State’s authority in this area to be somewhat broader than did the District Court. This is not to say that all such conduct and performance are without the protection of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. But we would poorly serve both the interests for which the State may validly seek vindication and the interests protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments were we to insist that the sort of bacchanalian revelries that the Department sought to prevent by these liquor regulations were the constitutional equivalent of a performance by a scantily clad ballet troupe in a theater.

The Department’s conclusion, embodied in these regulations, that certain sexual performances and the dispensation of liquor by the drink ought not to occur at premises that have licenses was not an irrational one. Given the added presumption in favor of the validity of the state regulation in this area that the Twenty-first Amendment requires, we cannot hold that the regulations on their face violate the Federal Constitution.⁵

The contrary holding of the District Court is therefore

Reversed.

1 Appellees in their brief here suggest that the regulations may exceed the authority conferred upon the Department as a matter of state law. As the District Court recognized, however, such a claim is not cognizable in the suit brought by these appellees under 42 ü. S. C. § 1983.

2 In addition to the regulations held unconstitutional by the court below, appellees originally challenged Rule 143.2 prohibiting topless waitresses, Rule 143.3 (2) requiring certain entertainers to perforin on a stage at a distance away from customers, and Rule 143.5 prohibiting any entertainment that violated local ordinances. At oral argument in that court they withdrew their objections to these rules, conceding “that topless waitresses are not within the protection of the First Amendment; that local ordinances must be independently challenged depending upon their content; and that the requirement that certain entertainers must dance on a stage is not invalid.” 326 F. Supp. 348, 350-351.

3 Mr. Justice Douglas in his dissenting opinion suggests that the District Court should have declined to adjudicate the merits of appellees’ contention until the appellants had given the “generalized provisions of the rules . . . particularized meaning.” Since parties may not confer jurisdiction either upon this Court or the District Court by stipulation, the request of both parties in this case that the court below adjudicate the merits of the constitutional claim does not foreclose our inquiry into the existence of an "actual controversy” within the meaning of 28 U. S. C. § 2201 and Art. Ill, § 2, cl. 1, of the Constitution.

By pretrial stipulation, the appellees admitted they offered performances and depictions on their licensed premises that were proscribed by the challenged rules. Appellants stipulated they would take disciplinary action against the licenses of licensees violating such rules. In similar circumstances, this Court held that where a state commission had “plainly indicated” an intent to enforce an act that would affect the rights of the United States, there was a “present and concrete” controversy within the meaning of 28 U. S. C. § 2201 and of Art. III. California Comm’n v. United States, 355 U. S. 534, 539 (1958). The District Court therefore had jurisdiction of this action.

Whether this Court should develop a nonjurisdictional limitation on actions for declaratory judgments to invalidate statutes on their face is an issue not properly before us. Cf. Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U. S. 288, 341 (1936) (Brandéis, J., concurring). Certainly a number of our cases have permitted attacks on First Amendment grounds similar to those advanced by the appellees, see, e. g., Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U. S. 241 (1967); Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U. S. 589 (1967); Baggett v. Bullitt, 377 U. S. 360 (1964), and we are not inclined to reconsider the procedural holdings of those cases in the absence of a request by a party to do so.

4 Similarly, States may validly limit the maimer in which the First Amendment freedoms are exercised, by forbidding sound trucks in residential neighborhoods, Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S. 77 (1949), and may enforce a nondiscriminatory requirement that those who would parade on a public thoroughfare first obtain a permit. Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U. S. 569 (1941). Other state limitations on the “time, manner and place” of the exercise of First Amendment rights have been sustained. See, e. g., Cameron v. Johnson, 390 U. S. 611 (1968), and Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 559 (1965).

5 Because of the posture of this case, we have necessarily dealt with the regulations on their face, and have found them to be valid. The admonition contained in the Court’s opinion in Seagram & Sons v. Hostetter, 384 U. S. 35, 52 (1966), is equally in point here: “Although it is possible that specific future applications of [the statute] may engender concrete problems of constitutional dimension, it will be time enough to consider any such problems when they arise. We deal here only with the statute on its face. And we hold that, so considered, the legislation is constitutionally valid.”