Postscript Enterprises v. City of Bridgeton

699 F. Supp. 1393, 1988 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13019, 1988 WL 125376
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Missouri
DecidedNovember 8, 1988
Docket87-1147 C (5)
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 699 F. Supp. 1393 (Postscript Enterprises v. City of Bridgeton) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Postscript Enterprises v. City of Bridgeton, 699 F. Supp. 1393, 1988 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13019, 1988 WL 125376 (E.D. Mo. 1988).

Opinion

699 F.Supp. 1393 (1988)

POSTSCRIPT ENTERPRISES, Plaintiff,
v.
CITY OF BRIDGETON, Defendant.

No. 87-1147 C (5).

United States District Court, E.D. Missouri, E.D.

November 8, 1988.

*1394 Murry A. Marks, Saint Louis, Mo., for plaintiff.

William A. Richter, Robert Schultz, Peper, Martin, Jensen, Maichel & Hetlage, St. Louis, Mo., for Bridgeton.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

LIMBAUGH, District Judge.

This cause is before the Court on defendant's motion for summary judgment. On February 4, 1987, the City Council for the City of Bridgeton enacted ordinance number 87-14, which regulates movie arcades with viewing areas that are designed for occupancy by fewer than six persons. Plaintiff Postscript Enterprises, Inc., an operator of a movie arcade in the City of Bridgeton, challenges as unconstitutional two provisions of the ordinance: first, section (C)(2), which requires all viewing areas to be visible from a continuous main aisle; and second, section (B), which requires a business to obtain a permit to operate a movie arcade.

Under Fed.R.Civ.P. 56, a movant is entitled to summary judgment if he can show "that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that he is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Poller v. Columbia Broadcasting System, 368 U.S. 464, 467, 82 S.Ct. 486, 488, 7 L.Ed.2d 458 (1962). The burden of proof is on the moving party. City of Mt. Pleasant, Iowa v. Associated Elec. Co-op, 838 F.2d 268, 273-74 (8th Cir.1988). Once the moving party discharges its burden, the non-moving party "must do more than show that there is some metaphysical doubt as to the material facts." Matsushita Elec. Industrial Co. v. Zenith Radio, 475 U.S. 574, 586, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 1356, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986). Indeed, it then bears the burden of setting forth specific facts to show that "there is sufficient evidence favoring [it] for a jury to return a verdict for [it]." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2510, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). If the non-moving party fails to meet that burden, summary judgment should be granted. City of Mt. Pleasant, 838 F.2d at 274.

Defendant initially raises the issue of plaintiff's standing to challenge the constitutionality *1395 of the ordinance. The Supreme Court recently addressed this issue in City of Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publishing Co., ___ U.S. ___, 108 S.Ct. 2138, 100 L.Ed.2d 771 (1988). In that case, the Court reiterated the well-established principal of allowing facial challenges of certain ordinances that regulate first amendment activity.

Recognizing the explicit protection accorded speech and the press in the text of the First Amendment, our cases have long held that when a licensing statute allegedly vests unbridled discretion in a government official over whether to permit or deny expressive activity, one who is subject to the law may challenge it facially without the necessity of first applying for, and being denied, a license.

City of Lakewood, 108 S.Ct. at 2143 (citations omitted).

Defendant argues that two of the factors listed by the Lakewood court as justifying review of the ordinance are not applicable here. First, the Bridgeton ordinance has no relicensing requirement, and second, the licensing decision is determined by the City Council rather than an administrative official. It must be recognized, however, that these were not the only two factors leading to the Supreme Court's decision that plaintiff had standing to bring the suit. In Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham, 394 U.S. 147, 151, 89 S.Ct. 935, 939, 22 L.Ed.2d 162 (1969), the Court stated, "The Constitution can hardly be thought to deny to one subjected to the restraints of such an ordinance the right to attack its constitutionality." This philosophy has not been abandoned by the Court, as defendant may suggest. Rather, Shuttlesworth was cited by the Court in Lakewood, 108 S.Ct. at 2143, upholding plaintiff's standing to challenge the city's licensing requirement. Similarly, the Court finds that plaintiff Postscript Enterprises, although it has not applied for a permit from the City of Bridgeton as required by Ordinance 87-14, has standing to challenge the constitutionality of the ordinance.

The Bridgeton ordinance does not limit its applicability to theaters where obscene movies are shown, nor does the city contend that the films plaintiff shows are obscene. Therefore, plaintiff is entitled to the protection afforded by the First Amendment. Schad v. Borough of Mount Ephraim, 452 U.S. 61, 101 S.Ct. 2176, 68 L.Ed.2d 671 (1981).

The first provision of the ordinance plaintiff challenges concerns the requirement that viewing areas "be visible from a continuous main aisle and must not be obscured by any curtain, door, wall or other enclosure." Several courts have considered the constitutionality of ordinances containing a similar requirement. In Ellwest Stereo Theatres, Inc. v. Wenner, 681 F.2d 1243, 1245 (9th Cir.1982), plaintiff challenged a City of Phoenix ordinance similar to the one at issue here. In examining an individual's right to privacy, the court acknowledged that a person has the constitutionally protected right to watch obscene movies in the privacy of one's own home, but not the right to watch the same movies in a public place. Id. at 1247 (citing Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, 413 U.S. 49, 93 S.Ct. 2628, 37 L.Ed.2d 446 (1973)). Similarly, the court ruled, an individual's right to privacy does not extend to viewing films or engaging in sexual activity in a closed booth of a public theater. Ellwest, 681 F.2d at 1248.

Since Ellwest, other courts have reached the same result, although sometimes analyzing the issue differently. In Wall Distributors, Inc. v. City of Newport News, 782 F.2d 1165 (4th Cir.1986), the court determined that the regulation must be analyzed under a manner restriction test, "for the ordinance does not regulate speech on the basis of content, but instead, restricts primarily noncommunicative aspects of [plaintiff's] right to disseminate the content of the films and thereby imposes only an incidental burden on that right." Id. at 1168. Using the test set forth in United States v. O'Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 88 S.Ct. 1673, 20 L.Ed.2d 672 (1968), the court concluded that the city had "a reasonable basis for determining that closed booth showings were sufficiently likely to foster a pattern of conduct inimical to public health, decency *1396

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Dawson v. Village of Spring Valley
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905 F.2d 223 (Eighth Circuit, 1990)

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Bluebook (online)
699 F. Supp. 1393, 1988 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13019, 1988 WL 125376, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/postscript-enterprises-v-city-of-bridgeton-moed-1988.