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The Federal District Court for the District of North Dakota last week denied a request for a preliminary injunction that would have forced the City of Fargo to allow a “premier adult toy retailer” to open a downtown location. 

The case arose out of a zoning dispute between plaintiff “Romantix” and Fargo’s planning department.  Romantix considered itself just another retailer eligible to locate downtown.  City officials disagreed, saying that Romantix’s business of selling sexual devices instead made it an “adult bookstore,” which the City prohibits downtown, and that the City would not issue a change-of-use permit for a prohibited use.…

Continue Reading Federal District Court: No Preliminary Injunction to Prohibit Fargo from Excluding Adult Toy Store Downtown

In a victory for plaintiff B&G Opa Holdings’s “Klub 24,” a federal district court recently struck down an ordinance used to shutter a strip club that briefly opened in a suburb north of Miami.  Three months after an Opa-locka, Florida licensing clerk stamped “approve” on B&G’s application for a “playhouse,” the city returned to shut down the operation.  Opa-locka explained that it had failed to run that use through its adult-entertainment special use permitting scheme and that Klub 24 was therefore operating without a license.

Klub 24’s Chained Doors Following City Shut-Down. Source: Miami Times

Litigation followed.  Adopting the magistrate’s recommendation, the district court granted summary judgment on B&G’s claims that the city’s ordinance unconstitutionally prohibited all adult-entertainment uses and also gave the city too much discretion to prohibit such uses.

In what appears to have been some administrative bungling—and perhaps some misdirection from B&G—the city first allowed Klub 24 as an “other club” in January 2018.  When it became clear that Klub 24 was in fact a…
Continue Reading Florida City’s Special Use Restriction on Strip Clubs Held Unconstitutional

Déjà Vu of Nashville, Inc. is a business engaged “in the presentation of female performance dance entertainment to the consenting adult public.”  More prosaically, Déjà Vu operates a strip club.  That business, you will not be surprised to learn, has its detractors.  After those detractors found themselves unable to prevent Déjà Vu from operating as a permitted use in downtown Nashville, they took aim at Déjà Vu’s planned valet service, which was to be operated by a third party.  They succeeded in persuading the city to deny the permit application for that valet service.  In return,…
Continue Reading Tennessee District Court Dismisses Strip Club’s First Amendment Claim

The Dallas Convention Center. Source: dallassports.org.

In October of this year, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an operator of an adult entertainment convention called “Exxxotica” had standing to challenge the City of Dallas, Texas’s 2016 decision not to enter into a contract allowing the event. The appeals court’s decision reversed a prior ruling by the federal district court dismissing the case.

In 2015, Three Expo Events, L.L.C., held the Exxxotica event at the Dallas Convention Center. The event, which featured near-nudity and a variety of suggestive activities, caught the attention of community members who believed that the event was immoral. These protesters then asked Dallas’s mayor to prohibit a second annual convention, and the mayor obliged. In 2016, the city refused to renew the event’s contract, and the city council approved a resolution prohibiting the same. Three Expo Events then filed suit, alleging First Amendment violations.

Because the city council’s resolution only prohibited Three Expo Events, and not its subsidiary—which would have been the party to the convention center contract—the district court found that Three Expo Events lacked standing to challenge the city’s decision.
Continue Reading Appeals Court Finds That Dallas Adult Convention Case Can Proceed

The Gentleman’s Playground in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Source: Yelp

This post was authored by Otten Johnson summer associate Lindsay Lyda.  Lindsay is a rising third-year law student at the University of Colorado Law School.

A few weeks ago, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court’s summary judgment…

A Hustler Hollywood store in Fresno, California. Source: KSFN.

Last month, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court’s denial of an adult business’s motion for preliminary injunction against Indianapolis.  The appeals court found that the business, Hustler Hollywood (HH), was unlikely to prevail on the merits of its…

This weekend (May 6th-9th, 2017) brings us to the American Planning American’s National Conference in New York City.  Along with colleagues from around the country, we’ll be talking about everything land use and the First Amendment, from signs to adult businesses, religious land uses, and the public forum doctrine.  If you’re planning to be at…

Last week, a federal district court in Massachusetts accepted a nude dancing establishment’s argument that the City of Chelsea violated the First Amendment in denying a building permit for renovations to the business’s premises.  In so doing, the court struck down the city’s adult business zoning regulations and directed the city to treat the establishment under other use classifications contained in the code.

Chelsea’s zoning code provides for several zoning districts, including industrial, highway business, shopping center, and retail commercial business districts.  The code allows for an “art use”, defined as “the creation, manufacture or assemblage of visual art, including two or three dimensional works of fine art or craft, or other fine art objects created, manufactured or assembled for the purpose of sale, display, commission, consignment or trade by artists or artisans; or classes held for art instruction,” in the industrial district, and by special permit in the retail business and highway business districts.  The code also allows for theater uses in the retail and shopping center districts, and adult entertainment uses in the highway commercial and shopping center districts.  Adult entertainment uses and theater uses are not allowed in the industrial district.
Continue Reading Massachusetts Court Strikes Down Local Adult Business Regulations

The Taboo adult novelty store in Columbia, South Carolina. Source: thestate.com.

In an unpublished decision issued in late January, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a Columbia, South Carolina regulation limiting the locations of adult businesses was a valid, content neutral regulation, applying what is commonly known as the “secondary effects” doctrine.  That doctrine allows local governments to specially regulate adult businesses in a content neutral manner on the grounds that such regulations counter the secondary effects—such as crime, prostitution, and neighborhood blight—of such businesses.

In December 2011, an adult business—“Taboo”—opened the only adult business establishment in Columbia, a book and novelty store.  That same month, Columbia enacted restrictions on adult businesses, including a 700-foot dispersal requirement from “sensitive” uses such as religious institutions, schools, parks, and residential uses, as well as a 1,000-foot dispersal requirement from other adult uses.  The regulations allowed a two-year amortization period in which an adult business in one of the restricted areas could operate before being shut down.  Taboo was located in one of the restricted areas, and continued to operate for the amortization period.  At the end of the amortization period, Taboo sued the city under the First Amendment.
Continue Reading Secondary Effects Doctrine Lives On in Fourth Circuit Decision