IDK, INC., a Nevada corporation; Showgirls of Las Vegas,
Inc., a Nevada corporation; Golden Girls, a
Nevada corporation; Playgirls, a sole
proprietorship; et al.,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
COUNTY OF CLARK; Thalia M. Dondero, Manuel J. Cortez, Karen
Hayes, Paul May, R.J. "Dick" Ronzone, Donald M. Clark and
Bruce L. Woodbury, in their capacity as members of the Clark
County Liquor and Gaming Licensing Board; et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
No. 85-1877.
United States Court of Appeals,
Ninth Circuit.
Argued Oct. 1, 1986.
Submitted Nov. 4, 1986.
Decided Jan. 8, 1988.
Vincent Savarese, III, Savarese & Chesnoff, Ltd., Las Vegas, Nev., for plaintiffs-appellees.
S. Mahlon Edwards, Deputy Dist. Atty., Las Vegas, Nev., for defendants-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Nevada.
Before ALARCON, BOOCHEVER and REINHARDT, Circuit Judges.
BOOCHEVER, Circuit Judge:
IDK, Inc., and other escort services located in the County of Clark appeal the district court's entry of summary judgment that the county's regulation concerning licensing and control of escort services and their employees is constitutional on its face. They contend the regulation violates the first and fourteenth amendments to the Constitution and seek a declaration that the regulation is unconstitutional, a permanent injunction against its enforcement, compensatory and punitive damages, and attorneys' fees. We affirm. The regulation is facially constitutional because it does not reach a substantial amount of constitutionally protected activity and is not vague in all possible applications.
FACTS
Escort services provide their clientele with companions for a fee. The county has tried several times to control their operation. It contends that most if not all escort services are little more than "modified brothels." In a previous attempt, the county prohibited working as a paid social companion or escort or operating an escort bureau as a business. The Supreme Court of Nevada held that the definitions of "social companion" and "escort" were unconstitutionally vaguе. Eaves v. Board of Clark County Comm'rs,
The county then enacted the regulation at issue here and has since amended it twice. On appeal, we review the regulation in its present form. Bradley v. School Bd.,
In a previous action involving different plaintiffs, the Supreme Court of Nevada found that the regulation was not unconstitutionally overbroad or vague and refused to grant a рreliminary injunction against its enforcement. Republic Entertainment, Inc. v. Clark County Liquor & Gambling Licensing Bd.,
ANALYSIS
I. Standard of Review
We review the grant or denial of a motion for summary judgment de novo, applying the same standard applied by a trial court under Rule 56(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: is there a genuine issue as to any material fact and is the moving party entitled to a judgment as a matter of law? Darring v. Kincheloe,
Although IDK forcefully argues that genuine issues of material fact exist, it does not tell us what they are. Our examination of the record reveals none. Summary judgment in cases involving constitutional issues is often undesirable because a court benefits from a well-developed record when deciding complex and important questions. See Askew v. Hargrave,
The challenge is to the statute itself, not its application to a specific event:
Procedures for testing the constitutionality of a statute "on its face" in the manner apparently contemplated by Dombrowski [v. Pfister,
Younger v. Harris,
There is an extensive record in this dispute. We have the benefit of two decisions from the Nevada Supreme Court and the district court's detailed ruling on the preliminary injunction request. The district court held oral argument before denying that request and before granting the motion for summary judgment. The parties briefed the issues extensively both here and below. The county submitted numerous exhibits to the district court which gave the history of the regulation and the county's reasons for enacting it.
Given the absence of a genuine issue of material fact and the presence of a well-developed record, we need review only the district court's application of the law.
II. Facial Challenges under the First Amendment
In analyzing the constitutional issues raised by this appeal, it is important to recognize the nature of the challenge to the county's regulations. IDK and the other escort services who brought this action were granted licenses by the county. No party has appealed from the denial of a license nor are we confronted with an appeal from a revocation of the licenses. The case was brought as a facial challenge only, and it is in that context that we undertake our review.
Courts permit facial challenges to statutes under the first amendment because its
freedoms are delicate and vulnerable, as well as supremely precious in our society. The threat of sanctions may deter their exercise almost as potently as the actual application of sanctions. Because First Amendment freedoms need breathing space to survive, government may regulate in the area only with narrow specificity.
NAACP v. Button,
Courts should not, however, countenance facial challenges in the ordinary course: "it can seldom be appropriate ... to exercise any such power of prior approval or veto over the legislative process." Younger,
Courts also use facial challenges to protect religious expression and association or to strike dоwn laws that violate the first amendment's establishment clause. See, e.g., Edwards v. Aguillard, --- U.S. ----,
A facial attack against a law's constitutionality may proceed along four axes: (1) the law may impermissibly burden the plaintiff's rights, (2) it may impermissibly burden the rights of third parties, (3) it may fail to provide adequate notice of what conduct is prohibited, or (4) it may lack sufficient guidelines to prevent arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. See Hoffman Estates v. The Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc.,
III. Dating and the Freedom of Association
The conduct for which the escort services claim constitutional protection is dating. The county submitted much evidence that escorts were nothing more than call girls and that the escort bureaus operated as panderers.
The Constitution protects associations because of their intrinsic value as well as their value as instrumentalities for achieving certain ends:
Our decisions have referred to constitutionally protected "freedom of association" in two distinct senses. In one line of decisions, the Court has concluded that choices to enter into and maintain certain intimate human relationships must be secured against undue intrusion by the State because of the role of such relationships in safeguarding the individual freedom that is central to our constitutional scheme. In this respect, freedom of association receives protection as a fundamental element of personal liberty. In another set of decisions, the Court has recognized a right to associate for the purpose of engaging in those activities protected by the First Amendment--speech, assembly, petition for the redress of grievances, and the exercise of religion. The Constitution guarantees freedom of association of this kind as an indispensable means of preserving other individual liberties.
The intrinsic and instrumental features of constitutionally protected association may, of course, coincide.
Roberts v. United States Jaycees,
In Coates v. City of Cincinnati, the Supreme Court struck down an ordinance that made it a criminal offense for three or more persons to gather on a sidewalk and " 'conduct themselves in a manner annoying to persons passing by.' "
Of course, a single association may have intimate and expressive features and therefore be entitled to claim the protection of both the first and fourteenth amendments. Roberts,
A. Intimate Association
The relationships protected by the fourteenth amendment "are those that attend the creation and sustenance of a family" and similar "highly personal relationships." Roberts,
As a couple, an escort and client are the smallest possible association. In other regards, however, the relationship between escort and client possesses few, if any, of the aspects of an intimate association. It lasts for a short period and only as long as the client is willing to pay the fee. Although a client may have some choice as to the person he or she wishes as a companion, the escоrt must accompany whomever the employer selects. Escorts and their clients do not claim to be involved in procreation, raising and educating children, cohabitation with relatives, or the other activities of family life. An escort may be involved with a large number of clients. While we may assume that the relationship between them is cordial and that they share conversation, companionship, and the other activities of leisure, we do not believe that a day, an evening, or even a weekend is sufficient time to develop deep attachments or commitments. In fact, the relationship between a client and his or her paid companion may well be the antithesis of the highly personal bonds protected by the fourteenth amendment. These are not the ties that "have played a critical role in the culture and traditions of the Nation by cultivating and transmitting shared ideals and beliefs."
We conclude that the county's regulation does not reach such a substantial amount of conduct protected by the freedom of intimate association to permit a facial challenge, and to that extent the escort services' reliance on Wilson is misplaced.5
B. Expressive Association
The freedom of expressive association permits groups to engage in the same activities that individuals may engage in under the first amendment.
An individual's freedom to speak, to worship, and to petition the government for the redress of grievances could not be vigorously protected from interference by the State unless a correlative freedom to engage in group effort toward those ends were not also guaranteed. According protection to collective effort on behalf of shared goals is especially important in preserving political and cultural diversity and in shielding dissident expression from suppression by the majority. Consequently, we have long understood as implicit in the right to engage in activities protected by the First Amendment a corresponding right to associate with others in pursuit of a wide variety of political, social, economic, educational, religious, and cultural ends.
Roberts,
Our analysis cannot stop here, for we must decide the extent to which the activities of the escort services are entitled to these protections. While the first amendment fully protects expression about philosophical, social, artistic, economic, literary, ethical, and other topics, Abood,
Moreover, "it has never been deemed an abridgment of freedom of speech or press to make a course of conduct illegal merely because the conduct was in part initiated, evidenced, or carried out by means of language, either spoken, written, or printed." Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co.,
Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Ass'n,
We readily concede that distinguishing between associations that are primarily expressive and those that are primarily commercial will not always be easy. Justice O'Connor, writing separately in Roberts, suggested that the courts can make this distinction by examining an association's activities and purposes:
Many associations cannot readily be described as purely expressive or purely commerсial. No association is likely ever to be exclusively engaged in expressive activities, if only because it will collect dues from its members or purchase printing materials or rent lecture halls or serve coffee and cakes at its meetings. And innumerable commercial associations also engage in some incidental protected speech or advocacy. The standard for deciding just how much of an association's involvement in commercial activity is enough to suspend the association's First Amendment right to control its membership cannot, therefore, be articulated with simple precision....
In my view, an association should be characterized as commercial, and therefore subject to rationally related state regulation of its membership and other associational activities, when, and only when, the association's activities are not predominantly of the type protected by the First Amendment.
Roberts,
Under any test it is clear that the escort services are primarily commercial enterprises, and their activities are not predominantly of the type protected by the first amendment. Despite its superficial appeal, the escort services' attempt to analogize themselves to newspaper publishers does not withstand scrutiny. First, both speech and the press are explicitly mentioned in the first amendment; escort services and dating are not. Second, books and newspapers are, without doubt, expression; dating is conduct that is protected to the extent that it involves expressive activities. See Roberts,
Third, and most important, the escort services make no claim that expression is a significant or necessary component of their activities. The services' advertisements included in the record do not tout their employees' skills in conversation, advocacy, teaching, or community service, and thus we assume that clients select their companions on the basis of other criteria.6 Unlike publishers, concert promoters, and cable television franchisers, the escort services do not control the content of expression or ensure that any expression occurs. They exercise no editorial judgment over the messages their employees convey and do not insist that they convey any. See Preferred Communications,
IV. The Escort Services' Facial Challenge
We conclude that the Constitution may afford some protection to dating and other social groups because of their value as intimate and expressive associations. The escort services, however, have little claim on the protections afforded intimate associations because the relationship between an escort and client possesses almost none of the constitutional aspects of intimate associations. They also lack a substantial claim to the protections given expressive associations because the escort services' activities and purposes are primarily commercial rather than communicative. As the county's regulation does not reach a substantial amount of constitutionally protected conduct, the escort services' facial challenge alleging an impermissible burden on their rights cannot succeed.
A. Prior Restraint and Overbreadth
The requirement of obtaining a license does not operate as a prior restraint on expression. As the activities of the escort services and their employees do not implicate substantial first amendment rights, the county may exercise some discretion in granting licenses. If the county revokes or denies licenses for arbitrary or constitutionally suspect reasons, the aggrieved party may challenge the application of the regulation in that specific context.7 We note that the county granted these plaintiffs licenses and therefore they may lack standing to challenge the licensing requirements as it applies to them. In any event, the fact that they have licenses militates against facial invalidation of the regulation. The regulation's time, place, and manner restrictions on the operation of escort services are valid.8
The plaintiffs' attack for overbreadth also fails. The regulation's bounds are sufficiently clear that there is no substantial instrusion on noncommercial social associations. Flipside,
B. Vagueness
Our conclusion that the escort services' activities are not protected by the first amendment is not fatal to all claims that the county's regulation is void for vagueness. See Flipside,
The regulation prohibits escort services from operating in a "sexually oriented" manner or advertising in a manner that suggests to a "reasonable, prudent person that sexual stimulation or sexual gratification" will be provided. CCC Secs. 8.32.080(I), 8.32.120, 8.32.140. The escort services argue that the terms "sexually oriented," "sexual stimulation," and "sexual gratification" are so vague that the regulation invites arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. These terms are narrowly defined in the regulation. See supra notes 1-2. The only possible exception is the inclusion of the phrase "to excite or arouse the prurient interest" in the definition of sexual stimulation. The Supreme Court made it clear in Spokane Arcades,
CONCLUSION
The county's regulation governing the licensing and operation of escort services neither reaches a substantial amount of activity protected by the freedom of expressive association nor appears vague in all possible applications. Therefore, the escort service's facial challenge fails. We emphasize that our holding does not mean that the regulation is incapable of unconstitutional application in particular situations and does not immunize the regulation from challenges to its application. Facial invalidation is "strong medicine" which should be used "sparingly and only as a last resort." Broadrick,
AFFIRMED.
REINHARDT, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
I dissent. I would invalidate the Clark County licensing regulation on constitutional grounds.
The regulation makes it unlawful to operate an escort bureau without a license or to work as an escort unless employed by a licensed bureau. Clark County Code (CCC) Secs. 8.32.040, 8.32.050 (1985). However, licenses are not issued automatically. Rather, the licensing officials are granted broad discretion to deny, suspend, and revoke licenses. Id. Secs. 8.32.080(I-J), 8.32.140. For example, the licensing board can deny an application if the applicant is not a person "of good character, honesty and integrity," id. Sec. 8.32.080(I)(1), or if the applicant or his or her source of financing is not "suitable," id. Secs. 8.32.080(J)(1), 8.32.080(I)(3). The regulation defines "escort" as anyone "who is held out to the public to be available for hire" and who, for monetary consideration, "consort[s] with, or accompanies ... another or others to or about social affairs, entertainments or places of amusement or within any place of public resort or within any private quarters." Id. Sec. 8.32.060(A).1
I believe that the licensing scheme, because it is targeted directly at people's ability to associate with one another, regulates constitutional freedom of association and should therefore be carefully scrutinized. Applying traditional first amendment principles, I conclude that the regulation is vague and overbrоad and does not constitute the least restrictive means of promoting the county's interests.
I. APPLICABILITY OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT
It is well established that freedom of association is an "inseparable aspect" of the freedom of speech protected by the first amendment and the liberty protected by the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment. See NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson,
The Supreme Court has said that constitutionally protected freedom of association has two categories. Roberts v. United States Jaycees,
It is in its construction of Jaycees that the majority makes its principal error. The majority bases its analysis of IDK's constitutional rights on the views expressed by Justice O'Connor in her concurring opinion. In that opinion, Justice O'Connor argued that association should lose its first amendment protection if it is primarily commercial in nature. See Jaycees,
Contrary to the majority's assumption, the Supreme Court has never adopted the primarily expressive/primarily commercial distinction; nor has the Court ever said that an association must be primarily expressive in order to be constitutionally protected. However appealing this approach may seem at first blush, it is not the route the Court took in Jaycees and it is not one we should take here.
Justice O'Connor acknowledged the difficulties inherent in her proposed standard, see Jaycees,
Theater owners, booksellers, and concert promoters provide products to the public in exchange for monetary compensation. They are protected by the first amendment because the materials or activities they make available are protected. See Interstate Circuit, Inc. v. City of Dallas,
It mаy be that the majority is confusing the category of those who have a commercial interest in protected activity with the category of "commercial speech." See Metromedia, Inc. v. City of San Diego,
While I believe that the escort-patron relationship is protected by the first amendment by virtue of the right of expressive association, I also believe that it is constitutionally protected because it involves important elements of both expressive and intimate association. In prior cases, the Supreme Court has found that protected assoсiations fell into one or the other category. See Jaycees,
II. FAILURE TO MEET FIRST AMENDMENT STANDARDS
The Clark County regulation is not a routine business licensing provision. Under a routine licensing scheme, the escort services might be required to submit certain information and perhaps pay a fee, and would then receive licenses automatically. Such licensing requirements have been upheld even where they apply to first amendment activities. For example, we recently upheld an ordinance that required erotic dancers and operators of erotic dance studios to obtain licenses. Kev, Inc. v. Kitsap County,
The Clark County regulation imposes a significantly greater restriction on the exercise of first amendment rights than did the ordinance we upheld in Kev. Clark County puts the burden on the applicant to prove that he or she is deserving of a license, and gives the licensing officials broad discretion to grant or withhold permission to associate based on a number of subjective factors. Thus the licensing scheme is not simply a restriction on the time, place, and manner in which the escort services do business. To the contrary, the escort services cannot do business at all unless the state, in the exercise of its discretion, allows them to do so. Although the regulation does not ban protected activity outright, it clearly "inhibits the ability or the inclination to engage" in such activity. Kev,
Accordingly, the Clark County regulation must meet stricter standards than the regulations at issue in Kev and in the zoning cases. Restrictions on the right of expressive association (other than time, place, and manner restrictions) are impermissible unless inter alia they are drawn narrowly and with specificity and constitute the least restrictive means of advancing the state's interests. The Clark County licensing scheme meets none of these requirements.
A. Arbitrary and Discriminatory Enforcement
A discretionary licensing provision, under which the licensing authority decides whether protected activity may or may not be carried on, raises the danger of arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. See Grayned v. City of Rockford,
In several cases, the Supreme Court has overturned ordinances that required licenses or рermits for the exercise of first amendment rights because of the danger of arbitrary enforcement. For example, in Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham,
The Clark County regulation fails to meet the standard of specificity that the first amendment demands. It requires that licenses be obtained for the exercise of associational rights, yet it allows the licensing officials to deny, suspend, and revoke licenses on subjective and indefinite grounds. For example, the licensing board may deny any application if the applicant is not a person "of good character, honesty and integrity," CCC Sec. 8.32.080(I)(1); if the applicant's prior activities, reputation, habits, or associations "pose a threat to the public interest of the county," id. Sec. 8.32.080(I)(2); if the escort service's source of financing is not "suitable," id. Sec. 8.32.080(J)(1); if "unsuitable persons" are or will be involved in the еscort service's day-to-day operations or have a financial interest in the service, id. Secs. 8.32.080(J)(9-10); if the applicant is not "[i]n all other respects qualified to be licensed" or is not "found suitable consistently with the declared policy of this chapter," id. Sec. 8.32.080(I)(3); or for "any cause deemed reasonable," id. Sec. 8.32.080(J)(11). A license may also be suspended or revoked if the licensee or any of its partners, managers, or employees has "[c]onducted or maintained the business in a manner contrary to the peace, safety, general welfare or morals of the community." Id. Sec. 8.32.140(j).
Such criteria are acceptable where the activity being licensed is not constitutionally protected. See, e.g., Jacobson v. Hannifin,
B. Least Restrictive Means
Because the Clark County regulation affects associational rights, it must also meet the standard spelled out by the Supreme Court in Jaycees: "Infringements on [the right to associate for expressive purposes] may be justified by regulations adopted to serve compelling state interests, unrelated to the suppression of ideas, that cannot be achieved through means significantly less restrictive of associational freedoms."
In applying the Jaycees test, we look first to the interests that the county has asserted as justification for the regulation. Those interests fall into three broad categories: "the health and safety of the public, community, and tourists"; public morality and decency; and economic development. CCC Sec. 8.32.010(C). The first is threatened by the dangers of infectious disease, see id. Sec. 8.32.010(C)(d), violence to the escorts, see id. Sec. 8.32.010(C)(m), and fraud against the patrons, see id. Secs. 8.32.010(C)(a, b, i, j). The second is implicated because the county believes the escort services are primarily prostitution operations. Id. Sec. 8.32.010(C)(o). The third is affected because the escort services are "harmful to the cause of attracting tourists, visitors, and conventions to the county." Id. Sec. 8.32.010(C). These interests are unrelated to the suppression of ideas, and they may all be regarded as compelling.
However, the Clark County regulation fails to satisfy the final element of the Jaycees test, because it is readily apparent that there are means of achieving the county's goals that are "significantly less restrictive of associational freedoms." Jaycees,
In overturning other ordinances that prohibited or imposed a licensing requirement on the exercise of first amendment rights, the Supreme Court similarly required that the least intrusive means of achieving state interests be adopted. In Schneider, for example, the Court noted that licensing the distribution of handbills was not the most direct way of controlling fraudulent solicitations for charity:
Frauds may be denounced as offenses and punished by law. Trespasses may similarly be forbidden. If it is said that these means are less efficient and convenient than bestowal of power on police authorities to decide what information may be disseminated from house to house, and who may impart the information, the answer is that considerations of this sort do not empower a municipality to abridge freedom of speech and press.
The comprehensive, discretionary licensing scheme that Clark County has adopted is not the least restrictive means available to achieve its ends. It is therefore constitutionally impermissible.
C. Overbreadth
In assessing an overbreadth challenge, the courts must look to "the ambiguous as well as the unambiguous scope" of the regulation; in this respect, "the vagueness of a law affects overbreadth analysis." Village of Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc.,
Nevertheless, it is not clear that the amendments have resolved the ambiguities cited in Eaves. Babysitters, companions, and social secretaries may all fall into the category of persons held out to the public as available for hire and paid to accompany others to social affairs, places of amusement, or public resorts. These individuals are not required to obtain licenses under state law.10 Moreover, for a paid companion or social secretary, the "escort function" is the primary focus of employment.11 Thus the post-Eaves amendments do not appear to have removed these individuals from the Clark County regulation's scope.
However, Clark County has offered no justification at all for licensing these associations. Its licensing scheme affects all first amendment associations in which one person is paid to associate with another, regardless of whether the association creates any of the harms that the county seeks to prevent. In this regard, the Clark County regulation differs significantly from the zoning ordinances targeted at adult establishments which the Supreme Court upheld in City of Renton and Young. The zoning regulations were carefully limited to the particular type of expressive activity that was thought to create problems: the exhibition of adult films.12 See Young,
In contrast, the Clark County licensing scheme is not limited to particular harms or to particular types of association that are linked with those harms; in fact, businesses that promote the objectionable type of association--sexually oriented escort bureaus--cannot be licensed at all. The regulation governs all associations in which one party receives monetary compensation. But the payment of money is not the evil with which the county is concerned, and that single criterion is not so closely linked to the harms cited by the county as to justify the regulation of protected association. The county cannot require that all paid-for protected association be licensed just because one type of paid-for association may give rise to problems or difficulties. See Board of Airport Commissioners v. Jews for Jesus, Inc., --- U.S. ----,
"Precision of regulation must be the touchstone" where first amendment rights are concerned. NAACP v. Button,
CONCLUSION
The Clark County regulation requires that licenses be obtained for the exercise of first amendment associational rights, and gives licensing officials broad discretion to grant or withhold such licenses. However, it fails to meet the strict standards that the first amendment imposes. It is written in terms that invite arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. It is not the least restrictive means of achieving the county's goals, and it encompasses associations that are unrelated to those goals. It is "unconstitutionally vague because it subjects the exercise of the right of assembly to an unascertainable standard, and unconstitutionally broad because it authorizes the punishment of constitutionally protected conduct." Coates,
Notes
(A) An "escort" is a person who is held out to the public to be available for hire and who for monetary consideration in the form of a fee, commission, salary, to consort with, or accompanies or who offers, for monetary consideration, to consort, or accompany, another or others to or about social affairs, entertainments or places of amusement or within any place of public resort or within any private quarters
(1) A "service oriented escort" is an escort which:
(a) Operates from an open office; and
(b) Does not employ or use an escort runner; and
(c) Does not advertise that sexual conduct will be provided to the patron or work for an escort bureau which so advertises; and
(d) Does not offer or provide sexual conduct.
(2) A "sexually oriented escort" is an escort which:
(a) Employs as an employee, agent or independent contractor an escort bureau runner; or
(b) Works for, as an agent, employee, contractor, or is referred to a patron by a sexually oriented escort bureau; or
(c) Advertises, that sexual conduct will be provided, or works for, as an employee, agent or independent contractor or is referred to a patron by an escort bureau which so advertises; or
(d) Solicits, offers to provide or does provide acts of sexual conduct to an escort patron, or accepts an offer or solicitation to provide acts of sexual conduct for a fee in addition to the fee charged by the escort bureau; or
(e) Works as an escort without having a current work identification card issued for the referring escort burеau in his or her possession at all times while working as an escort; or
(f) Accepts a fee from a patron who has not first been delivered a contract.
(B) An "escort bureau" is a person, as defined herein, which for a fee, commission, profit, payment or other monetary consideration, furnishes, refers or offers to furnish or refer escorts, or provides or offers to introduce patrons to escorts.
(1) A "service oriented escort bureau" is an escort bureau which:
(a) Maintains an open office at an established place of business; and
(b) Employs or provides only escorts which possess work identification cards; and
(c) Does not use an escort bureau runner; and
(d) Does not advertise that sexual conduct will be provided to a patron.
(2) A "sexually oriented escort bureau" is an escort bureau which:
(a) Operates in any of the manners described in Section 8.32.010(C)(a), (b), (e), (k), (o); or
(b) Does not maintain an open office; or
(c) Employs as an employee, agent or independent contractor, uses an escort bureau runner; or
(d) Advertises, that sexual conduct will be provided, or that escorts which provide such sexual conduct will be provided, referred, or introduced to a patron; or
(e) Solicits, offers to provide or does provide acts of sexual conduct to an escort patron; or
(f) Employs, contracts with or provides or refers escorts who do not possess work identification cards as required herein and in Chapter 8.24 of the Clark County Code; or
(g) Does not deliver contracts to every patron or customer; or
(h) Employs, contracts with a sexually oriented escort or refers or provides to a patron, a sexually oriented escort.
CCC Sec. 8.32.060(A)-(B).
(Q) "Sexual stimulation" means to excite or arouse the prurient interest or to offer or solicit acts of sexual conduct as defined under "offer to provide acts of sexual conduct" in subsection (G) of this section
(R) "Sexual gratification" means sexual conduct as defined in subsection (J) of this section.
CCC Sec. 8.32.060(Q)-(R). The regulation defines "offer to provide acts of sexual conduct" in CCC Sec. 8.32.060(G):
(G) An "offer to provide acts of sexual conduct" means to offer, propose or to solicit to provide sexual conduct to a patron. Such definition includes all conversations, advertisements and acts which would lead a reasonably prudent person to conclude that such acts were to be provided.
Subsection 8.32.060(J) defines "sexual conduct":
(J) "Sexual conduct" means the engaging in or the commission of an act of sexual intercourse, oral-genital contact, or the touching of the sexual organs, pubic region, buttock or female breast of a person for the purpose of arousing or gratifying the sexual desire of another person.
A district court, faced with almost identical facts, held that the police officer had no constitutional right under the first or fourteenth amendment to date someone against his department's orders. Baron v. Meloni,
Without relying on the doctrine of overbreadth, the escort services may assert the first amendment rights of their еmployees and clients as well as their own. Virginia State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc.,
The Wilson case was not a facial attack on an ordinance but a suit under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 alleging that the police department fired officer Wilson for exercising his right of association.
In determining that the Jaycees and the Rotarians engaged in significant amounts of expressive activities, the Supreme Court examined, inter alia, the publications of these organizations. See Roberts,
In addition to requiring detailed disclosure of financing and organization, the regulation gives the licensing board substantial discretion to grant or deny licenses:
(I) The licensing board shall not grant the license unless it is satisfied that the applicant is suitable in all respects. The applicant must be:
(1) A person of good character, honesty and integrity;
(2) A person whose prior activities, criminal record, if any, reputation, habits and associations do not pose a threat to the public interest of the county or to the effective regulation and control of prostitution, or create or enhance the dangers of unsuitable, unfair or illegal practices, methods and activities in the conduct of an escort bureau or the carrying on of the business and financial arrangements incidental thereto; and
(3) In all other respects qualified to be licensed or found suitable consistently with the declared policy of this chapter.
(J) The license board has full power to deny any application:
(1) If the applicant has not satisfied the licensing board that the proposed financing of the entire operation is from a suitable source; any lender or other source of money or credit which the licensing board finds does not meet the standards set forth in subsection (I) of this section may be deemed unsuitable; or
(2) If the license application is incomplete so as to not contain all information required by this chapter; or
(3) If all license and investigation fees are not paid; or
(4) If the applicant or any of its principals has been convicted of a crime listed in subsection (B)(2) of this section or has been enjoined in an adjudicated civil action from engaging in fraudulent advertising or sales or trade practices; or
(5) If the applicant, based upon his activities since the enactment of these regulations, has or has an associate who has operated a sexually oriented escort bureau; or
(6) If the applicant, based upon the content of his application, intends to operate an escort bureau in a sexually oriented manner; or
(7) If the applicant or partner, stockholder, officer, director or associate has had an escort license previously revoked or denied for any ground contained in this section or in Section 8.32.140; or
(8) If the applicant, its partners, officers or directors do not qualify for or have not obtained work identification cards as required in Section 8.32.070; or
(9) If the applicant's financial statement, business activities, background or associates disclose that unsuitable persons are or will be involved in the management or conduct of the day-to-day business affairs of the escort bureau; or
(10) If the applicant's financial statements, business activities, background or associates disclose that unlicensed or unsuitable persons have or will have an interest in the ownership of or have an equitable or beneficial right to the profits of the escort bureau; or
(11) For any cause deemed reasonable.
CCC Sec. 8.32.080(I)-(J). These are also grounds for license revocation. CCC Sec. 8.32.140. The Nevada legislature has declared that escort bureaus, like casinos, are "privileged occupations." Nev.Rev.Stat. Sec. 244.345 (1981); Nev.Rev.Stat. Sec. 463.0129 p 2 (1983); CCC Sec. 8.32.080. This circuit has found that wide discretion in the issuance of gaming licenses does not violate due process. Jacobsen v. Hannifin,
Escort services must, among other things, provide patrons with written contracts and receipts, operate from an office open to the public, and keep copies of all published advertisements. CCC Sec. 8.32.110
[T]he plain import of our cases is, at the very least, that facial overbreadth adjudication is an exception to our traditional rules of practice and that its function, a limited one at the outset, attenuates as the otherwise unprotected behavior that it forbids the State to sanction moves from "pure speech" toward conduct and that conduct--even if expressive--falls within the scope of otherwise valid criminal laws that reflect legitimate state interests in maintaining comprehensive controls over harmful, constitutionally unprotected conduct
Broadrick,
The regulation exempts many businesses from its requirements:
All professions, employments and businesses which are licensed by thе state of Nevada or county of Clark pursuant to a specific statute or ordinance, and all employees employed by a business so licensed, and which perform an escort or escort bureau function as a service merely incidental to the primary function of such profession, employment or business and which do not hold themselves out to the public as an escort or escort bureau, are exempt from licensing pursuant to this chapter. Any employment agency, licensed by the state, which provides escorts as defined herein, must, however, obtain a license as required by this chapter.
CCC Sec. 8.32.150.
It appears from the arguments and the record that Clark County believes that all escort services are engaged in the business of prostitution. Nevertheless, it has decided to license those services. We cannot assume that the escort services are by definition unlawful businesses, for if they were, the county could not license them. To the contrary, we must assume that the businesses that are to be licensed offer lawful association. Indeed, the regulation makes it clear that the only escort services that are entitled to licenses are those that provide lawful association. Thus we must assess the regulation in terms of its effect on lawful services and lawful association
It is true that commercial activity may be regulated even where constitutional freedoms are implicated. See Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton,
In support of its claim that the escort services are "primarily commercial enterprises," the majority contends that expression is not "a significant or necessary component of their activities." Majority at 1195. While in my view that contention is fallacious, I do not discuss it separately because the major premise--the expressive/commercial dichotomy--is, as I have suggested, erroneous
Thus the majority is wrong to declare that the escort services' overbreadth challenge "cannot be made in a commercial context." Majority at 1197. The cases hold only that overbreadth does not apply in the commercial speech context. Bates,
I believe, however, that the same method of analysis I apply hereafter would be applicable in a mixed-category case
The Supreme Court has also upheld zoning ordinances that require adult establishments to obtain licenses and satisfy locational restrictions. City of Renton; Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc.,
Facial challenges on grounds of vagueness or arbitrary enforcement are allowed, at least where first amendment rights are implicated. See Kolender,
Of course, there is no need to decide here if these suggested restrictions would meet the appropriate constitutional standard. See City of Renton,
The Nevada Supreme Court upheld the revised regulation. Republic Entertainment, Inc. v. Clark County Liquor and Gambling Licensing Board,
"Practical nurses" who help care for the ill, injured, or infirm are licensed, Nev.Rev.Stat. Secs. 632.010(6), 632.260-632.340 (1985), as are facilities that provide day care for the aged and infirm, id. Secs. 449.004, 449.030-449.240. However, those provisions do not appear to cover an individual who is paid to provide companionship for an elderly, bedridden, or lonely person. Child care facilities for five or more children are licensed, id. Secs. 432A.020(4), 432A.131-432A.220, but babysitters are not
Supervision rather than companionship would seem to be the babysitter's primary function
The Detroit ordinance also reached adult bookstores, as well as various businesses that did not involve protected activity. Young,
