Doctor John's, Inc. v. City of Roy

Summary

The Tenth Circuit reviewed a constitutional challenge to Roy City's ordinance regulating sexually oriented businesses. The court upheld most of the district court's rulings, including rejecting facial vagueness and prior-restraint challenges, but remanded for further consideration of whether the ordinance was adequately supported by evidence concerning the secondary effects of adult businesses.

Holdings

1. Doctor John's had standing to challenge the ordinance because the City's announced intent to enforce it created a credible threat of enforcement and the business faced concrete burdens whether it applied for a license or refused and risked fines and legal proceedings.
2. The ordinance was not facially void for vagueness. Its use of the terms "significant or substantial portion" and "characterized by their emphasis upon" provided sufficient notice and did not create an impermissible risk of arbitrary enforcement in the vast majority of applications.
3. The ordinance's licensing scheme was not facially invalid as an unconstitutional prior restraint. The City's discretion concerned whether a business had to operate under an adult-business license, not whether it could operate at all, and the ordinance required prompt issuance of a license unless specified criteria were unmet.
4. The ordinance was properly treated as a content-neutral time, place, and manner regulation aimed at secondary effects, and the City met its initial burden through evidence it reasonably believed relevant. However, the record was unclear whether the district court considered evidence that could cast direct doubt on the City's rationale, so the secondary-effects/narrow-tailoring issue was remanded for further proceedings.
5. The ordinance's temporary disqualification of persons convicted of specified sex-related crimes from obtaining sexually oriented business employee licenses was a permissible content-neutral time, place, and manner regulation.
6. The ordinance did not infringe customers' asserted privacy rights because it did not prohibit or materially restrict the sale of marital aids; Doctor John's could continue selling such merchandise under an SOB license.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Doctor John's had Article III standing to challenge the ordinance before the City had formally enforced it against the business.
2. Whether the ordinance was facially void for vagueness under the Due Process Clause and First Amendment standards.
3. Whether the ordinance's licensing scheme constituted an unconstitutional prior restraint by granting city officials unbridled discretion or denying prompt judicial review.
4. Whether the ordinance was a valid content-neutral time, place, and manner regulation supported by evidence of adverse secondary effects.
5. Whether the ordinance's civil-disability provision, which temporarily disqualified persons convicted of specified crimes from obtaining sexually oriented business employee licenses, violated the First Amendment.
6. Whether the ordinance infringed customers' privacy rights concerning the purchase of marital aids.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded