Lone Star Security & Video, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles

These consolidated appeals concern the constitutionality of five city ordinances that regulate mobile billboards. One of the ordinances limits the type of sign that may be affixed to motor vehicles parked or left standing on public streets; the other ordinances prohibit non-motorized, “mobile billboard advertising displays” within city limits. Appellants, who have been subject to enforcement under the ordinances, brought suit against the municipalities arguing that the mobile billboard laws im-permissibly restrict their freedom of speech in violation of the First Amendment. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we review de novo the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the municipalities. We hold that the ordinances withstand First Amendment scrutiny as content-neutral, reasonable, time, place, and manner restrictions on speech. See Long Beach Area Peace Network v. City of Long Beach, 574 F.3d 1011, 1019 (9th Cir. 2009). We affirm.

BACKGROUND

Between 2010 and 2012, the California-Legislature enacted a series of amendments to the Vehicle Code empowering local municipalities to regulate mobile billboards, which the Legislature found to blight…

concurring:

I concur in the majority’s opinion, as it faithfully follows the current controlling case law. I write separately because, in my view, the Supreme Court should take a second look at an important aspect of Members of City Council of City of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. 789 , 104 S.Ct. 2118 , 80 L.Ed.2d 772 (1984).

This case is about ugly signs on vehicles, and no doubt I would not want these vehicles and their signs parked in front of my house. But under the ordinances at issue, a car with equally ugly decals — including a decal of a vehicle with an ugly sign — would not “go to jail,” but instead treat my curb like the upper left corner of a Monopoly board.

If “aesthetics” are to play a part in speech restriction, then such aesthetics should apply equally, decal or sign. Yet under Taxpayers for Vincent , the Court rejected the very point that I now make. See 466 U.S. at 810-12 , 104 S.Ct. 2118 (rejecting the Ninth Circuit’s holding that “a prohibition against the use of unattractive signs cannot be justified on esthetic grounds if it fails to apply to all equally unattractive signs wherever they might be located”). I think our court was right then,…

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

LONE STAR SECURITY AND VIDEO, No. 14-55014 INC., a California corporation, Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No. 2:11-cv-02113- v. ODW-MRW

CITY OF LOS ANGELES; CITY OF

SANTA CLARITA; CITY OF RANCHO

CUCAMONGA; CITY OF LOMA LINDA,

Defendants-Appellees.

SAMI AMMARI, an individual, No. 14-55050 Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No. v. 2:12-cv-04644-

ODW-MRW

CITY OF LOS ANGELES,

Defendant-Appellee. OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Otis D. Wright II, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted March 11, 2016 Pasadena, California LONE STAR SEC. & VIDEO V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES

Filed July 7, 2016

Before: Stephen Reinhardt, Mary H. Murguia, and John B. Owens, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Murguia; Concurrence by Judge Owens

SUMMARY*

Constitutional Law

Affirming the district court’s summary judgment in favor of defendant municipalities, the panel held that five city ordinances regulating mobile billboards withstood First Amendment scrutiny as content-neutral, reasonable,…