*1 Before SMITH and EMILIO M. GARZA, Circuit Judges, and CUMMINGS, [*] District Judge. PER CURIAM:
Encore Videos’s petition for panel rehearing is DENIED. The City’s petition for rehearing
en banc is construed as a petition for panel rehearing pursuant to the 5 TH C IR . IOP to F ED . R. A PP .
P. 35, and is also DENIED. The opinion of the court issued on October 29, 2002,
I.
Appellant Encore Videos, Inc. (“Encore Videos”), operates a sexually oriented retail video store in San Antonio, Texas. In April 1995, the city council enacted Ordinance #82135, which forbids sexually oriented businesses from locating within 1000 feet of residential areas. Encore Videos’ store is within 1000 feet of a residential area, although separated by the Loop 410 highway. Encore Videos provides only sales for off-premises viewing; customers cannot view the videos at the store.
In September 1997, Encore Videos sued, challenging the ordinance on First Amendment
grounds. In response, the city amended and reenacted the ordinance to impose procedural safeguаrds
required by
FW/PBS, Inc. v. City of Dallas
,
The district court granted the city’s motion for summary judgment and denied Encore Videos’. Encore Video [sic] , Inc. v. City of San Antonio , No. Civ. A. SA-97-CA1139FB, 2000 WL 33348240 (W.D. Tex. Oct. 2, 2000). Encore Videos appeals, arguing that the ordinance offends the First Amendment and the state Constitution. We reverse and remand.
II.
A.
Before addressing the merits of the First Amendment claim, we must determine whether the
ordinance should be analyzed as a prior restraint SS as advocated by Encore Videos SS or as a time,
place, and manner regulation. As a general rule, “a law subjecting the exercise of First Amendment
freedoms to the prior restraint of a license, without narrow, objective, and definite standards to guide
the licensing authority,” is a presumptively unconstitutional “prior restraint.”
Shuttlesworth v. City
*3
of Birmingham
,
There is no evidence of improper censorial motives on the part of the city council. Where “nothing in the record . . . suggests impermissible motives on the part” of the enacting legislature, a local government seeking to use the secondary effects justification need show only that “(1) the drafters of the ordinance did rely upon studies of secondary effects,” and (2) a “majority” of the city council members received “some information about the secondary effects.” Lakeland Lounge , 973 F.2d at 1259.
In an opinion rejecting a First Amendment challenge to Ordinance #82135, the predecessor to Ordinance #87443, we held that the city “relied on studies provided by the City Council relating to secondary effects.” NATCO, Inc. v. City of San Antonio , No. 98-50645, slip op. at 6 (5th Cir. June 2, 1999) (unpublished). In this circuit, unpublished opinions issued on or after January 1, 1996, generally are not binding precedent, although parties may cite them, and they have “persuasive value.” TH C IR . R. 47.5.4. NATCO ’s factual findings on the exact point at issue surely carry “persuasive” weight. Id. They also have been endorsed by the district court a quo . In any event, there is no reаson to go against the factual findings of NATCO on this point, and we follow them here.
Even a content-neutral regulation may be considered a prior restraint if it gives government officials “unbridled discretion” to restrict protected speech. But Ordinance #87443 does not fall into this category, because the Director of Building Inspections may deny a sexually oriented business’s permit application only if the applicant seeks to utilize a location within 1000 feet of a residential neighborhood, another sеxually oriented business, or several other precisely specified types of properties. San Antonio Ordinance #87443 § 2(a)-(f).
B.
1.
To pass constitutional muster, a time, place, and manner regulation must be “content-
neutral, . . . narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest, and leave open ample
alternative channels of communication.”
Frisby v. Schultz
, 487 U.S. 474, 481 (1988) (internal
citations omitted). In
City of Renton
,
Later Supreme Court decisions on time, place, and manner regulations have continued to
*5
apply the narrow tailoring standard.
[3]
A leading post-
City of Renton
secondary effects decision of this
court also applied it.
See SDJ, Inc. v. City of Houston
,
Encore Videos argues that the San Antonio ordinance fails to meet the first three of the four requirements of the time, place, and manner test. We address each in turn.
2.
The first requirement is content neutrality. “‘The principal inquiry in determining content
neutrality, in sрeech cases generally and in time, place, and manner cases in particular, is whether the
government has adopted a regulation of speech because of disagreement with the message it
conveys.’”
Hill
v.
Colorado
,
The inquiry here is similar to that applied to the question of secondary effects motivation, described in part II.A, supra . It is not certain, however, whether the two tests require the same degree of proof of improper motive before a regulation fails them. Even so, an ordinance for which *6 the record discloses zero proof of improper motive surely passes both tests.
3.
We next consider the requirement that the ordinance serve a substantial government interest.
“A city’s ‘interest in attempting to preserve the quality of urban life is one that must be accorded high
respect.’”
City of Renton
,
We have interpreted the substantial government interest standard as requiring not only a
showing of the
importance
оf the interest, but also a demonstration that the challenged statute, at
least to some degree, is
effective
in serving that interest. This approach arguably conflicts with
City
of Renton
, which mandates only that a statute be “
designed
to serve a substantial government
interest” and does not require evidence of effectiveness.
City of Renton
,
Fortunately, this question has little practical significance for the present case. Evidence of
effectiveness too weak to survive scrutiny under
J&B Entertainment
’s version of the substantial
interest standard SS which requires only that the “government must present sufficient evidence tо
demonstrate ‘a link between the regulat ion and the asserted governmental interest’ under a
‘reasonable belief’ standard” SS surely will also fail to meet the requirements of the much more
stringent narrow tailoring prong.
See J&B Entertainment
,
4.
The ordinance’s constitutionality under the time, place, and manner test therefore turns on the narrow tailoring prong. It fails to meet this test and therefore is unconstitutional.
A time, place, and manner regulation meets the narrow tailoring standard if it “targets and
eliminates no more than the exact source of the evil it seeks to remedy.”
Frisby
,
Ordinance #87443 prohibits sexually oriented businesses from being within 1000 feet of other sexually oriented businesses or residential areas, churches, schools, or parks. The ordinance defines “sexually oriented business” broadly. The regulation applies not only to establishments at which individuals can view sexually explicit materials on site, but also to establishments that do not permit on-site viewing ( i.e., businesses at which individuals сan buy or rent sexually explicit materials for at- home viewing). In addition, the ordinance applies to any bookstore, novelty store, or video store that devotes over 20% of its inventory or floor space to sexually explicit materials. San Antonio Ordinance #87443 § 1(2).
The city justifies this ordinance on the ground that it will reduce the adverse secondary effects (such as increased crime and the reduction of property values) of sexually oriented businesses. Therеfore, in order to demonstrate that the ordinance is narrowly tailored, the city must show that the ordinance addresses these problems.
To establish that Ordinance #87443 passes the narrow tailoring test, the city relies on three
adult sections.
studies of the secondary effects of adult businesses, all conducted in other cities: one in Seattle,
Washington, in 1989, another in Austin, Texas, in 1986, and the third in Garden Grove, California,
in 1991. The city is “entitled to rely on the experiences . . . of other cities . . . so long as whatever
evidence t he city relies upon is reasonably believed to be relevant to the problem that the city ad-
dresses.”
City of Renton
,
However, these studies do not support the city’s extensive regulation of sexually oriented
businesses. The studies either entirely exclude establishments that provide only take-home videos and
books (as is the case with the Seattle study)
[8]
or include them but do not differentiate the data
collected from such businesses from evidence collected from enterprises that provide on-site adult
entertainment SS as may have been the case with the Austin and Garden Grove studies.
[9]
Off-site
businesses differ from on-site ones, because it is only reasonable to assume that the former are less
likely to create harmful secondary effects. If consumers of pornography cannot view the materials
at the sexually oriented establishment, they are less likely to lingеr in the area and engage in public
alcohol consumption and other undesirable activities.
See World Wide Video, Inc. v. City of Tukwila
,
*10
Given the expansive reach of the ordinance in the instant case, we must require at least some
substantial evidence of the secondary effects of establishments that sell adult products solely for off-
site consumption.
See Alameda Books
,
In order to meet the narrow tailoring requirement, the city was required to provide at least
some substantial evidence of secondary effects specific to adult businesses that sell books or videos
solely for off-site entertainment.
See Ward
,
III.
A.
Under
FW/PBS
,
won the support of only three Justices, three others endorsed a concurring opinion by Justice Brennan
that argued for even stronger procedural protections.
FW/PBS
,
B.
We reject Encore Videos’ argument that Ordinance #87443 violates FW/PBS ’s requirement that “the licensor must make the decision whether to issue the license within a specified and reasonable time.” FW/PBS , 493 U.S. at 228. The ordinance requires the Director of Building Inspections to “issue or deny a certificate of occupancy to a sexually oriented business not more than thirty (30) business days subsequent to the date of the application’s submission of an application therefor.” San Antonio Ordinance #87443 § 2(f)(4). A license may not be approved until a series of inspections have been performed, and there is no time limit for the completion of the inspections. [13]
At first glance, the city’s licensing system seems analogous to that which the Supreme Court
found unconstitutional in
FW/PBS
. The ordinance challenged in that case also had a thirty-day
deadline, combined with a system of required inspections for which there was no separate time limit.
The ordinance was struck down because it “provide[d] no means by which an applicant may ensure
that the business is inspected within the 30 day time period.”
FW/PBS
,
The city and the district court here distinguish FW/PBS , however, on the ground that the *13 permit system in question here assigns the task of inspection to the same official who is required to issue or deny a license within thirty days. [14] The Director of Building Inspections therefore is able to control the inspection pro cess and ensure that it is completed within the thirty-day period. By contrast, the system invalidated in FW/PBS assigned the task of inspection to three separate agencies, none of which was under the control of the chief of police, the official tasked with enforcing the thirty-day deadline for issuing a permit. Id.
This is a matter of first impression and is a close call. [15] Nonetheless, based on the record before us, we conclude t hat Ordinance #87443 does not violate the promptness requirement of FW/PBS. It is certainly plausible to argue that the director’s deadline for issuing a permit also constrains his discretion with respect to the scheduling of inspections. Likewise, placing the responsibility for both meeting the thirty-day deadline and carrying out the inspections in the hands of the same official makes it more likely that the deadline will be met than was the case under the system of divided responsibility reviewed in FW/PBS .
Because there is no evidence in the record suggesting that the Director of Building Inspections *14 either cannot or will not be able to process adult business permit applications within the thirty-day limit, we reject Enсo re Videos’ argument on this point. This determination, however, does not necessarily extend to other cases in which the record might reveal evidence of delays in excess of the statutory deadline.
C.
The circuits are split on the question whether
FW/PBS
’s requirement of “prompt judicial
review in the event that the license is erroneously denied” requires merely prompt
access
to judicial
review or a prompt judicial
decision. FW/PBS
,
The Supreme Court recently passed up an opportunity to resolve this split. [19] We therefore follow our own precedent and decide in favor of the city on this question. See TK’s Video , 24 F.3d at 709.
The judgment is REVERSED and REMANDED for appropri ate further proceedings in accordance with this opinion. [20]
Notes
[*] District Judge of the Northern District of Texas, sitting by designation.
[1]
City of Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc.
, 475 U.S. 41, 49 (1986);
see also Lakeland
Lounge, Inc. v. City of Jackson
,
[2]
See, e.g.
,
Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Pub. Co.
,
[3]
See, e.g.
,
Ward v. Rock Against Racism
,
[4] The more recent
Lakeland Lounge
decision, which also dealt with First Amendment
challenges to a “secondary effects” ordinance, did not mention the narrow tailoring requirement, but
neither did it explicitly repudiate it.
See Lakeland Lounge
,
[5]
See J&B Entm’t, Inc. v. City of Jackson
,
[6] In
SDJ
, we said that “an ordinance is sufficiently well tailored if it effectively promotes the
government’s stated interest.”
SDJ
,
[8] The Seattle study was limited to cabarets that provide live adult entertainment.
[9] Based on the evidence in the record, it is difficult to tell whether the Austin and Garden Grove st udies excluded off-site entertainment businesses entirely or lumped them in with the rest. The Austin study covered two “adult book stores” and one “adult film store” among the six adult businesses studied, but failed to indicate whether these three businesses provide any on-site entertainment. The Garden Grove study focused on a total of seven adult businesses but neglected to indicate whether any of them provided exclusively off-site entertainment.
[10] The Supreme Court’s decision in Alameda Books is not to the contrary. In Alameda Books , the Court held that the evidence presented by Los Angeles to support its regulation of sexually oriented businesses was sufficient to survive summary judgment. The challenged provision in that
[12] The relevance of
FW/PBS
is not affected by
Thomas v. Chicago Park Dist.
,
[13] See San Antonio Uniform Building Code § 109.3 (requiring that a “certificate of occupan- cy” be issued only “[a]fter the building official inspects the building or structure and finds no violation of the provisions of this code or other laws which are enforced by the code enforcement agency”).
[14]
Encore Video
,
[15] This court did once briefly consider the question. In Crystal Cinema v. City of Lubbock , No. 97-10597 (5th Cir. July 16, 1998) (unpublished), we held that the city’s permit system for adult businesses was constitutional despite the fact that it failed to create a separate deadline for the completion of required inspections. The general forty-five-day deadline for consideration of applications was deemed sufficient, even though not all the agencies involved were under the au- thority of the City Secretary, the official responsible for issuing permits and deniаls within the specified time. As an unpublished opinion, Crystal Cinema is not binding precedent. 5 TH C IR . R. 47.5.4. Moreover, it fails even to consider the relevance of FW/PBS to this issue.
[16]
See Boss Capital, Inc. v. City of Casselberry
,
[17]
See Nightclubs, Inc. v. City of Paducah
,
[18] See San Antonio Ordinance #87443 § 2(f)(7) (providing for immediate access to judicial review but not imposing a time limit for decision).
[19]
See Thomas
,
[20] Because we strike down the locational restriction of Ordinance #87443 on First Amendment grounds, we need not address Encore Videos’ argument that the ordinance violates the Texas constitution.
