This community can limit adult bookstore hours because of "harmful secondary effects" they're alleged to create, a federal appeals court says. An attorney for a corporation which challenged the law says the ruling is a danger to the First Amendment.
Last October, a district judge ruled the law in question was "content neutral" and targeted the secondary effects, rather than content-based and silencing free expression. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled the law was content based but "could be analysed under the relaxed standard of time, place, and manner restrictions because the expression at issue was a certain category of expression - sexually explicit, non-obscene material," according to the Free Speech Coalition.
The DiMa Corporation had challenged the local law on behalf of its Pure Pleasure adult bookstore. DiMa attorney Randall Tigue told the coalition the appeals court ruling was dangerous for First Amendment jurisprudence.
"The opinion suggests that simply because speech is sexual in nature, [a law] automatically qualifies as a content-neutral time, place and manner restriction on speech regardless of the reason the law was enacted," Tigue said.
The 7th Circuit Court says that a city must show it had "some evidence of harmful secondary effects," the coalition continued. The appeals court ruled Hallie had met its burden of proof "minimally," based on town officials citing a published Wisconsin court ruling declaring another city had established evidence of secondary effects.
