Adult Use Ordinance Unconstitutional Because it Treats New and Existing Businesses Differently
About 10 years
ago, the Village of Bridgeview, Illinois passed ordinances banning the sale
of alcoholic beverages at new adult businesses. The one existing adult
business in the Village was exempted from the regulation. Plaintiff (a business that wanted to open up a new adult business in the Village) filed suit challenging the ordinances on a variety of constitutional bases,
including that they were unconstitutional under the First Amendment.
The district
court struck down that portion of the ordinance that banned alcohol sales at adult businesses, finding that.imposing this restriction only at new adult businesses was
unreasonable. The court determined that the Village could not provide a valid justification for treating
new businesses differently from the existing business. Since the ordinance
establishing the restriction included a justification that the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages in an adult business had adverse secondary effects, and these secondary effects would presumably occur at old or new businesses, the court found the restriction unconstitutional.
The case was
remanded to address plaintiff’s other arguments, including whether there were
reasonable opportunities to express adult speech. 7421 West 100th Place Corp.
v. Village of Bridgeview, 2016 WL 5373062 (ND IL 9/26/16).
Thank you to our
friends at the Law of the Land Blog for reporting on this case: Fed.Dist. Court in IL Finds Ordinance Banning Alcohol in Adult Establishment wasUnconstitutional
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