AMERICAN BOOKSELLERS ASSN. v. Superior Court

We deal in these two cases with ordinances of the Cities of Paramount and Redondo Beach which restrict display of certain explicit material when such material “has as its primary purpose, design or effect sexual arousal, gratification or affront.”

The two ordinances are virtually identical, except for what may be a typographical error in the Redondo Beach ordinance. For convenience sake, citations in the body of this opinion will be to the Paramount ordinance. (Ord. No. 478, Paramount Mun. Code, ch. 11 A.) It first provides (§ 11A-1) that the term “harmful matter to minors” has no applicability to the ordinance. It then goes on to describe the type of materials and activities which it does cover as follows: “No person shall for commercial purposes knowingly display, cause to be displayed or permit to be displayed in any business open to minors, unless accompanied by a parent or guardian, any book, magazine, or other publication or matter which depicts any photograph or pictorial representation of any of the anatomical parts of a person’s genitals or anus, or any act of sexual intercourse, oral copulation, sodomy, masturbation or bestiality, whether actual or simulated,…