The U.S. Supreme Court announced last week that it would accept the case of an adult business’ 13-year-old legal battle with the city of Littleton, Colorado that will decide whether or not a business can remain open while appealing a city’s denial of their license.
The case began in 1999 when Christal's, a retail chain with four locations that carried adult videos, lingerie and novelties, opened in a part of Littleton where the city prohibited “adult stores”. The city refused to grant the store a sales-tax license, something it requires to operate, citing zoning regulations that prohibit adult stores from operating in that area.
Attorneys for the store filed an appeal, claiming the store didn’t qualify as adult because less than 50 percent of the store’s products were adult-oriented.
The crux of the issue is whether or not laws written by city governments across the country based on a previous ruling by the Supreme Court regarding appeals are constitutional or not.
In 1990 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that appeals were entitled to "prompt judicial review." That leaves the question, does prompt judicial review mean beginning the appeals process, which can be lengthy, or does it mean issuing a decision in a timely manner.
Attorneys for Christal's suggest without guarantees for quick decisions by the court, that a court could ignore an appeal, leaving it in limbo long enough to create a financial disaster for the adult business in question.
The city will argue that the ordinance in place is constitutional, one that guarantees quick access, but without a timeline, is constitutional.
The legal team for Christal’s argues that since city courts cannot tell a state judge when to schedule a trial, they cannot guarantee “quick access” anyway, as the current procedures in Littleton do, so their ordinances are unconstitutional.
Last year the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a Colorado state Supreme Court decision, declaring the licensing procedures outlined by the city unconstitutional.
