MEMORANDUM OF OPINION
MANOS, District Judge.
On January 5, 1990, Morscott, Inc. (“Morscott”), plaintiff, which seeks to open and operate an adult bookstore and mini-motion picture theatre on property located at 13330 Brookpark Road in Cleveland, Ohio, filed the above-captioned case against the City of Cleveland, its Commissioner of Building Francis Cash, and its Zoning Administrator Paul Beno (hereinafter collectively referred to as “the City”),
defendants, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief
against the City’s enforcement of Cleveland, Ohio, Zoning Code §§ 343.01, 343.11, 343.22, and 345.06 (1988) [hereinafter Zoning Code]. Morscott alleges that the above provisions of the City’s zoning code, taken collectively,
violate its constitutional right to freedom of speech under the first and fourteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution
and art. I, § 10 of the
Ohio Constitution.
Jurisdiction is proper under 28 U.S.C.A. §§ 1331 (West Supp. 1990), 1343(a)(3) and (4) (West Supp.1990), and 2201 (West Supp.1990).
On March 30, 1990, the court held an evidentiary hearing on Morscott’s motion for preliminary injunction. For the following reasons, the motion is granted.
I.
On November 16, 1989, Morscott, the owner of a parcel of land located at 13330 Brookpark Road in Cleveland, Ohio, on which there is a one-story building,
applied to the City of Cleveland’s Department of Community Development, Division of Building & Housing, for a permit to change the use of its building from a “money exchange” to an “adult bookstore and mini-motion picture theatre.” On November 17, 1989, the application was denied pursuant to Zoning Code § 345.06. That section provides:
In any Industrial District,
no building or premises shall hereafter be erected, altered, used, arranged or designed to be used, in whole or in part for any form of adult entertainment as defined in Section 343.11(a)(2). (Ord. No. 2275-84. Passed December 2, 1985. Effective December 6, 1985).
Zoning Code § 345.06.
Shortly thereafter, Morscott filed its motion for preliminary and permanent injunctive relief.
II.
It is well-settled in the Sixth Circuit that district courts evaluating requests for preliminary injunctive relief must consider four interrelated factors:
1) Whether the plaintiffs have shown a strong or substantial likelihood or probability of success on the merits;
2) Whether the plaintiffs have shown irreparable injury [for which there is no adequate remedy at law];
3) Whether the issuance of a preliminary injunction would cause substantial harm to others;
4) Whether the public interest would be served by issuing a preliminary injunction.
N.A.A.C.P. v. City of Mansfield,
866 F.2d 162, 166 (6th Cir.1989) (quoting
Mason County Medical Ass’n v. Knebel,
563 F.2d 256, 261 (6th Cir.1977)) (insert added). Each will be considered in turn; however, before the court can do so it must determine the nature of Cleveland’s zoning code as it relates to adult entertainment uses,
i.e.,
whether the code’s adult use provisions restrict or prohibit speech on the basis of its content, a
per se
first amendendment violation,
see Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc.,
475 U.S. 41, 46-47, 106 S.Ct. 925, 928, 89 L.Ed.2d 29 (1986);
Young v. American Mini Theatres,
427 U.S. 50, 64-65, 96 S.Ct. 2440, 2449, 49 L.Ed.2d 310 (1976), or whether it merely places content-neutral “time, place, and manner” restrictions on the exercise of free speech.
Young,
427 U.S. at 63 & n. 18, 96 S.Ct. at 2449 & n. 18 (“Reasonable regulations of the time, place, and manner of protected
speech,
where those regulations are necessary to further significant governmental interests, are permitted by the First Amendment”) (footnote added).
Cleveland’s zoning code does not prohibit adult bookstores and/or other fqrms of adult entertainment within the city, it merely regulates the location of such uses; further, its provisions relating to adult uses are not directed toward the message conveyed by adult entertainment, but instead toward its “secondary effects,” and the impact such uses have on the surrounding area.
Following the Supreme Court’s reasoning in
Young
and its progeny, the proper analysis to apply in this case is that accorded to content-neutral “time, place, and manner” regulation.
Young,
427 U.S. at 63 & n. 18, 96 S.Ct. at 2449 & n. 18;
Renton,
475 U.S. at 49, 106 S.Ct. at 929-30 (“[In
Young\
a majority of this Court decided that, at least with respect to businesses that purvey sexually explicit materials, zoning ordinances designed to combat the undesirable secondary effects of such businesses are to be reviewed under the standards applicable to ‘content-neutral’ time, place, and manner regulations”) (footnote omitted).
Content-neutral time, place, and manner regulations on the exercise of free speech are acceptable under the first amendment so long as they are designed to serve a substantial governmental interest and do not unreasonably limit alternative avenues of communication.
Renton,
475 U.S. at 47, 106 S.Ct. at 928. To meet this standard, the city must show: (1) that it relied on sufficiently objective factual information justifying its restrictions on free speech, (2) that its regulations are adequately designed to further its stated justification, and, (3) that its regulations do not have the effect of suppressing, or greatly restricting access to, lawful speech.
Renton,
475 U.S. at 50-54, 106 S.Ct. at 930-32;
Young,
427 U.S. at 71 & n. 35, 96 S.Ct. at 2452-53 & n. 35;
Keego Harbor Co. v. City of Keego Harbor,
657 F.2d 94, 98 (6th Cir.-1981).
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MEMORANDUM OF OPINION
MANOS, District Judge.
On January 5, 1990, Morscott, Inc. (“Morscott”), plaintiff, which seeks to open and operate an adult bookstore and mini-motion picture theatre on property located at 13330 Brookpark Road in Cleveland, Ohio, filed the above-captioned case against the City of Cleveland, its Commissioner of Building Francis Cash, and its Zoning Administrator Paul Beno (hereinafter collectively referred to as “the City”),
defendants, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief
against the City’s enforcement of Cleveland, Ohio, Zoning Code §§ 343.01, 343.11, 343.22, and 345.06 (1988) [hereinafter Zoning Code]. Morscott alleges that the above provisions of the City’s zoning code, taken collectively,
violate its constitutional right to freedom of speech under the first and fourteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution
and art. I, § 10 of the
Ohio Constitution.
Jurisdiction is proper under 28 U.S.C.A. §§ 1331 (West Supp. 1990), 1343(a)(3) and (4) (West Supp.1990), and 2201 (West Supp.1990).
On March 30, 1990, the court held an evidentiary hearing on Morscott’s motion for preliminary injunction. For the following reasons, the motion is granted.
I.
On November 16, 1989, Morscott, the owner of a parcel of land located at 13330 Brookpark Road in Cleveland, Ohio, on which there is a one-story building,
applied to the City of Cleveland’s Department of Community Development, Division of Building & Housing, for a permit to change the use of its building from a “money exchange” to an “adult bookstore and mini-motion picture theatre.” On November 17, 1989, the application was denied pursuant to Zoning Code § 345.06. That section provides:
In any Industrial District,
no building or premises shall hereafter be erected, altered, used, arranged or designed to be used, in whole or in part for any form of adult entertainment as defined in Section 343.11(a)(2). (Ord. No. 2275-84. Passed December 2, 1985. Effective December 6, 1985).
Zoning Code § 345.06.
Shortly thereafter, Morscott filed its motion for preliminary and permanent injunctive relief.
II.
It is well-settled in the Sixth Circuit that district courts evaluating requests for preliminary injunctive relief must consider four interrelated factors:
1) Whether the plaintiffs have shown a strong or substantial likelihood or probability of success on the merits;
2) Whether the plaintiffs have shown irreparable injury [for which there is no adequate remedy at law];
3) Whether the issuance of a preliminary injunction would cause substantial harm to others;
4) Whether the public interest would be served by issuing a preliminary injunction.
N.A.A.C.P. v. City of Mansfield,
866 F.2d 162, 166 (6th Cir.1989) (quoting
Mason County Medical Ass’n v. Knebel,
563 F.2d 256, 261 (6th Cir.1977)) (insert added). Each will be considered in turn; however, before the court can do so it must determine the nature of Cleveland’s zoning code as it relates to adult entertainment uses,
i.e.,
whether the code’s adult use provisions restrict or prohibit speech on the basis of its content, a
per se
first amendendment violation,
see Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc.,
475 U.S. 41, 46-47, 106 S.Ct. 925, 928, 89 L.Ed.2d 29 (1986);
Young v. American Mini Theatres,
427 U.S. 50, 64-65, 96 S.Ct. 2440, 2449, 49 L.Ed.2d 310 (1976), or whether it merely places content-neutral “time, place, and manner” restrictions on the exercise of free speech.
Young,
427 U.S. at 63 & n. 18, 96 S.Ct. at 2449 & n. 18 (“Reasonable regulations of the time, place, and manner of protected
speech,
where those regulations are necessary to further significant governmental interests, are permitted by the First Amendment”) (footnote added).
Cleveland’s zoning code does not prohibit adult bookstores and/or other fqrms of adult entertainment within the city, it merely regulates the location of such uses; further, its provisions relating to adult uses are not directed toward the message conveyed by adult entertainment, but instead toward its “secondary effects,” and the impact such uses have on the surrounding area.
Following the Supreme Court’s reasoning in
Young
and its progeny, the proper analysis to apply in this case is that accorded to content-neutral “time, place, and manner” regulation.
Young,
427 U.S. at 63 & n. 18, 96 S.Ct. at 2449 & n. 18;
Renton,
475 U.S. at 49, 106 S.Ct. at 929-30 (“[In
Young\
a majority of this Court decided that, at least with respect to businesses that purvey sexually explicit materials, zoning ordinances designed to combat the undesirable secondary effects of such businesses are to be reviewed under the standards applicable to ‘content-neutral’ time, place, and manner regulations”) (footnote omitted).
Content-neutral time, place, and manner regulations on the exercise of free speech are acceptable under the first amendment so long as they are designed to serve a substantial governmental interest and do not unreasonably limit alternative avenues of communication.
Renton,
475 U.S. at 47, 106 S.Ct. at 928. To meet this standard, the city must show: (1) that it relied on sufficiently objective factual information justifying its restrictions on free speech, (2) that its regulations are adequately designed to further its stated justification, and, (3) that its regulations do not have the effect of suppressing, or greatly restricting access to, lawful speech.
Renton,
475 U.S. at 50-54, 106 S.Ct. at 930-32;
Young,
427 U.S. at 71 & n. 35, 96 S.Ct. at 2452-53 & n. 35;
Keego Harbor Co. v. City of Keego Harbor,
657 F.2d 94, 98 (6th Cir.-1981).
Having determined the appropriate analysis to apply, and the standards which must be met in order for the zoning provisions to be found constitutionally valid under this analysis, the court can now determine whether Morscott is entitled to preliminary injunctive relief under the Sixth Circuit’s four factor test.
' A.
Morscott has shown a very strong likelihood of success on the merits.
1.
First, the section of Cleveland’s zoning code which directly prevents
Morscott from opening and operating its adult bookstore and mini-motion picture theatre, the provision which bans adult uses in any industrial district,
was enacted by the City without any objective factual information before it. At the March 30 hearing, the only evidence presented by the city on its “objective factual basis” for enacting section 345.06 was the following letter,
sent to the City Planning Commission by Councilman Dale Miller, the sponsor of the legislation:
The purpose of this ordinance is to tighten restrictions on adult entertainment without complete prohibition. The major aim is to prevent the development or growth of visible strips of adult entertainment, especially in or near residential areas____
3) The legislation prohibits adult entertainment in any industrial district, on the theory that such uses are incompatable with sound economic development. Increasingly, economic development is encouraged by attractive conditions and safe surroundings. This legislation runs contrary to the theory that each zoning classification is progressively more permissive. Rather, the theory is that incompatable uses should not be in the same area. The current prohibition on residential development in some industrial districts is consistent with the concept of this legislation.
I believe this legislation will reduce the negative impact of adult entertainment in Cleveland within constitutional guidelines without creating insuperable enforcement difficulties, and I would ask for your support.
Letter from Councilman Dale Miller to Cleveland City Planning Commission (Dec. 5, 1984).
Although a city is entitled to rely on the experiences of other cities as a basis for justifying its zoning laws,
Renton,
475 U.S. at 51, 106 S.Ct. at 931, there has been no evidence presented to this court that the “theories” espoused by Miller in the above letter, and later “relied upon” by the City in enacting the legislation, are anything but his own; as such, the theory’s factual basis and objectivity are suspect.
See Keego Harbor,
657 F.2d at 98 (“When a city effectively zones protected activity out of the political entity,
the justification required is more substantial than when the First Amendment burden is merely ‘incidental’ ... ”) (footnote added).
2.
Second, the effect of Cleveland’s adult use zoning regulations is totally contrary to the City’s stated purpose for enacting them. Although the City claims that the adult use regulations were enacted to deconcentrate, or disperse, such uses in an effort to prevent neighborhood blighting,
see supra
note 10, the effect of the regulations is to concentrate them along a one- and-one-half mile (IV2 mi.) strip of Brook-park Road (with over a mile of the area in the center of the strip unavailable due to the ban on adult uses in industrial zones).
See
text
infra
Part I-A-3 (evidence presented at the hearing on the location of sites available for adult uses);
see also
Plaintiff’s Hearing Exhibit 13 (Building Zone Maps);
CLR Corp. v. Henline,
702 F.2d 637, 639 (6th Cir.1983) (“[Assuming [the city’s] purpose was to deconcentrate restricted uses, the
effect
of the ordinance is to
concentrate
any adult bookstores and theatres in the city into a 2,500-foot frontage[;] we decline to find a compelling governmental interest to justify this statute when [the city] cannot demonstrate even a rational relationship between the asserted purpose and the effect of the statute”) (emphasis in original).
Additionally, the City’s “objective data” (Miller’s letter) admits that the ban on adult uses in industrial districts runs contrary to Cleveland’s overall scheme of increasingly permissive zoning regulations as one progresses from residential to industrial districts; it is difficult to comprehend why Cleveland would allow adult uses in local retail and general retail business districts, where residential development is allowed,
see generally
Zoning Code chapter 343, yet ban them in industrial districts where, as Miller’s letter admits, a harmful effect on neighborhoods is much less likely because of the prohibition on residential development there.
See
Cleveland Fact
Book (only 111.5 acres out of the 14,587.1 acres zoned for industry, or 0.76%, allow for residential development);
see also
Zoning Code chapter 345 (“Industrial Districts”).
3.
Third, the zoning code’s adult use provisions do not allow the owner of an adult bookstore or adult theatre a reasonable opportunity to open and operate its business within the City of Cleveland.
See Renton,
475 U.S. at 54, 106 S.Ct. at 932 (“In our view, the First Amendment requires ... that [the city] refrain from effectively denying [the owners of adult theatres] a reasonable opportunity to open and operate an adult theatre within the city”).
At the March 30 hearing, Morscott presented the unrebutted
testimony of Dennis Hadick, the contractor applying for the building permit, who demonstrated, by reference to Cleveland’s official zoning maps,
that
only three lots in the entire city,
all located within a mile-and-a-half of one another on Brookpark Road (currently occupied by an RTA parking lot, Brookpark News & Books (an adult bookstore), and a Ramada Inn), satisfy the location and distance requirements under the present zoning scheme.
To put this in perspective, only 3.6 acres out of the City’s total land area of 48,384 acres (equivalent to 0.007%) are available as sites for adult uses. Plaintiff’s Hearing Exhibit 16.
Such a zoning plan clearly runs afoul of the Supreme Court’s directive in
Renton
that owners of adult bookstores and theatres cannot be denied a reasonable opportunity to open and operate their businesses.
The City attempted to counter Hadick’s testimony by reference to the code’s “grandfather clause,” which allows “prior nonconforming uses” to remain at their present sites so long as they are neither enlarged nor expanded, and to its waiver provision,
see supra
note 3; however, the City presented no evidence on the number of prior nonconforming uses now operating under the grandfather clause, or on the feasibility of obtaining such a waiver.
See
Zoning Code chapter 359 (“Nonconforming Uses”). Further, the court finds suspect a scheme of zoning regulations which condition the exercise of free speech on the approval of others located nearby or on limited
exceptions to the rule.
Unless the City can show at trial that Morscott’s evidence mischaracterizes the availability of sites allowing adult uses, or that the zoning regulation’s apparent effect of concentrating those sites, contrary to its stated purpose to disperse them, is imaginary, Cleveland’s present adult use zoning provisions are unconstitutional under the first amendment.
Accordingly, Morscott has shown that it is very likely to succeed on the merits at trial.
B.
Morscott has shown that it will suffer irreparable injury if a preliminary injunction does not issue.
The testimony and evidence presented by Morscott at the March 30 hearing leads this court to believe that it is being denied free speech rights guaranteed by the first amendment; accordingly, it has shown irreparable injury. As the Supreme Court held in
Elrod v. Burns,
427 U.S. 347, 37374, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 2690, 49 L.Ed.2d 547 (1976):
The loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury. See
New York Times Co. v. United States,
403 U.S. 713, 91 S. Ct. 2140, 29 L.Ed.2d 822 (1971). Since such injury was both threatened and occurring at the time of respondents’ motion and since respondents sufficiently demonstrated a probability of success on the merits, the Court of Appeals might properly have held that the District Court abused its discretion in denying preliminary injunctive relief.
Id.
(citing
Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan,
372 U.S. 58, 67, 83 S.Ct. 631, 637, 9 L.Ed.2d 584 (1963));
accord Christy v. City of Ann Arbor,
824 F.2d 489 (6th Cir.1987),
cert. denied,
484 U.S. 1059, 108 S.Ct. 1013, 98 L.Ed.2d 978 (1988).
C.
Morscott has shown that issuance of a preliminary injunction will cause others little, if any, harm.
The property on which Morscott seeks to open its adult bookstore and mini-motion picture theatre is located in an area zoned for “General Industry.”
See supra
note 6. There are no residential areas, churches, hospitals, schools, libraries, playgrounds, or any other institutional use within a thousand feet (1000') of it. Therefore, granting plaintiff preliminary injunctive relief against the enforcement of the zoning code’s adult use provisions, at least to the degree that its ban on adult uses in industrial zones prevents Morscott from' opening and operating its business pending final resolution of this case, will not cause significant harm to others.
D.
Morscott has shown that the public interest would be served by granting preliminary injunctive relief.
It is beyond cavil that it is in the public interest to uphold a constitutionally protected right.
Playboy Enterprises, Inc. v. Meese,
639 F.Supp. 581, 587 (D.D.C.1986).
III.
Because Morscott has satisfied all four requirements prerequisite to the granting of a preliminary injunction, its motion is granted.
Accordingly, the City shall issue to plaintiff all necessary permits to allow it to remodel its building so that it can be opened and operated as an adult bookstore and mini-motion picture theatre pending final resolution of this case.
IT IS SO ORDERED.