ABSTRACT
In City of Los Angeles v. Alameda Books, Inc., 535 US 425, the US Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a zoning ordinance prohibiting multiple adult entertainment businesses from operating in the same building. The primary issue on appeal was whether the city had enacted the ordinance in accordance with a "substantial government interest," as defined by the Court in City of Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 US 41. Justice Scalia, in addition to joining the plurality opinion, wrote a separate concurrence to express his view that "First Amendment traditions make 'secondary effects' analysis quite unnecessary," and that "the Constitution does not prevent those communities that wish to do so from regulating, the business of pandering sex." Justice David H. Souter, joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen G. Breyer, dissented from the Court's judgment, asserting that the ordinance should be struck down as a content-based restriction on protected First Amendment expression.
