CITY OF LOS ANGELES v. ALAMEDA BOOKS, INC., et al.

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
425 OCTOBER TERM, 2001
Syllabus
CITY OF LOS ANGELES v. ALAMEDA BOOKS,
INC., et al.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the ninth circuit
No. 00–799. Argued December 4, 2001—Decided May 13, 2002
Based on its 1977 study concluding that concentrations of adult entertain-
ment establishments are associated with higher crime rates in sur-
rounding communities, petitioner city enacted an ordinance prohibit-
ing such enterprises within 1,000 feet of each other or within 500 feet
of a religious institution, school, or public park. Los Angeles Munici-
pal Code § 12.70(C) (1978). Because the ordinance’s method of calculat-
ing distances created a loophole permitting the concentration of multi-
ple adult enterprises in a single structure, the city later amended the
ordinance to prohibit “more than one adult entertainment business in
the same building.” § 12.70(C) (1983). Respondents, two adult estab-
lishments that openly operate combined bookstores/video arcades in
violation of § 12.70(C), as amended, sued under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 for de-
claratory and injunctive relief, alleging that the ordinance, on its face,
violates the First Amendment. Finding that the ordinance was not a
content-neutral regulation of speech, the District Court reasoned that
neither the 1977 study nor a report cited in Hart Book Stores v. Ed-
misten, a Fourth Circuit case upholding a similar statute, supported
a reasonable belief that multiple-use adult establishments produce the
secondary effects the city asserted as content-neutral justifications
for its prohibition. Subjecting § 12.70(C) to strict scrutiny, the court
granted respondents summary judgment because it felt the city had
not offered evidence demonstrating that its prohibition was necessary
to serve a compelling government interest. The Ninth Circuit affirmed
on the different ground that, even if the ordinance were content neu-
tral, the city failed to present evidence upon which it could reasonably
rely to demonstrate that its regulation of multiple-use establishments
was designed to serve its substantial interest in reducing crime. The
court therefore held the ordinance invalid under Renton v. Playtime
Theatres, Inc., 475 U. S. 41.
Held: The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded.
222 F. 3d 719, reversed and remanded.
Justice O’Connor, joined by The Chief Justice, Justice Scalia,
and Justice Thomas, concluded that Los Angeles may reasonably rely

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
426 LOS ANGELES v. ALAMEDA BOOKS, INC.
Syllabus
on its 1977 study to demonstrate that its present ban on multiple-
use adult establishments serves its interest in reducing crime.
Pp. 433–443.
(a) The 1977 study’s central component is a Los Angeles Police De-
partment report indicating that, from 1965 to 1975, crime rates for,
e. g., robbery and prostitution grew much faster in Hollywood, which
had the city’s largest concentration of adult establishments, than in
the city as a whole. The city may reasonably rely on the police de-
partment’s conclusions regarding crime patterns to overcome sum-
mary judgment. In finding to the contrary on the ground that the 1977
study focused on the effect on crime rates of a concentration of es-
tablishments—not a concentration of operations within a single estab-
lishment—the Ninth Circuit misunderstood the study’s implications.
While the study reveals that areas with high concentrations of adult
establishments are associated with high crime rates, such areas are also
areas with high concentrations of adult operations, albeit each in sepa-
rate establishments. It was therefore consistent with the 1977 study’s
findings, and thus reasonable, for the city to infer that reducing the
concentration of adult operations in a neighborhood, whether within
separate establishments or in one large establishment, will reduce crime
rates. Neither the Ninth Circuit nor respondents nor the dissent pro-
vides any reason to question the city’s theory. If this Court were to
accept their view, it would effectively require that the city provide
evidence that not only supports the claim that its ordinance serves an
important government interest, but also does not provide support for
any other approach to serve that interest. Renton specifically refused
to set such a high bar for municipalities that want to address merely
the secondary effects of protected speech. The Court there held that
a municipality may rely on any evidence that is “reasonably believed to
be relevant” for demonstrating a connection between speech and a sub-
stantial, independent government interest. 475 U. S., at 51–52. This
is not to say that a municipality can get away with shoddy data or rea-
soning. The municipality’s evidence must fairly support its rationale
for its ordinance. If plaintiffs fail to cast direct doubt on this ration-
ale, either by demonstrating that the municipality’s evidence does not
support its rationale or by furnishing evidence that disputes the munici-
pality’s factual findings, the municipality meets the Renton standard.
If plaintiffs succeed in casting doubt on a municipality’s rationale in
either manner, the burden shifts back to the municipality to supplement
the record with evidence renewing support for a theory that justifies its
ordinance. See, e. g., Erie v. Pap’s A. M., 529 U. S. 277, 298. This case
is at a very early stage in this process. It arrives on a summary judg-
ment motion by respondents defended only by complaints that the 1977
study fails to prove that the city’s justification for its ordinance is nec-

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
427 Cite as: 535 U. S. 425 (2002)
Syllabus
essarily correct. Therefore, it must be concluded that the city, at this
stage of the litigation, has complied with Renton’s evidentiary require-
ment. Pp. 433–442.
(b) The Court need not resolve the parties’ dispute over whether
the city can rely on evidence from Hart Book Stores to overcome sum-
mary judgment, nor respondents’ alternative argument that the ordi-
nance is not a time, place, and manner regulation, but is effectively a
ban on adult video arcades that must be subjected to strict scrutiny.
Pp. 442–443.
Justice Kennedy concluded that this Court’s precedents may allow
Los Angeles to impose its regulation in the exercise of the zoning au-
thority, and that the city is not, at least, to be foreclosed by summary
judgment. Pp. 444–453.
(a) Under Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 U. S. 41, if a city
can decrease the crime and blight associated with adult businesses by
exercising its zoning power, and at the same time leave the quantity
and accessibility of speech substantially undiminished, there is no First
Amendment objection, even if the measure identifies the problem
outside the establishments by reference to the speech inside—that is,
even if the measure is content based. On the other hand, a city may
not regulate the secondary effects of speech by suppressing the speech
itself. For example, it may not impose a content-based fee or tax, see
Arkansas Writers’ Project, Inc. v. Ragland, 481 U. S. 221, 230, even
if the government purports to justify the fee by reference to sec-
ondary effects, see Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement, 505 U. S.
123, 134–135. That the ordinance at issue is more a typical land-use
restriction than a law suppressing speech is suggested by the fact that
it is not limited to expressive activities, but extends, e. g., to massage
parlors, which the city has found to cause the same undesirable sec-
ondary effects; also, it is just one part of an elaborate web of land-use
regulations intended to promote the social value of the land as a whole
without suppressing some activities or favoring others. Thus, the ordi-
nance is not so suspect that it must be subjected to the strict scrutiny
that content-based laws demand in other instances. Rather, it calls for
intermediate scrutiny, as Renton held. Pp. 445–447.
(b) Renton’s description of an ordinance similar to Los Angeles’ as
“content neutral,” 475 U. S., at 48, was something of a fiction. These
ordinances are content based, and should be so described. Neverthe-
less, Renton’s central holding is sound. Pp. 448–449.
(c) The necessary rationale for applying intermediate scrutiny is
the promise that zoning ordinances like the one at issue may reduce
the costs of secondary effects without substantially reducing speech.
If two adult businesses are under the same roof, an ordinance requir-

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
428 LOS ANGELES v. ALAMEDA BOOKS, INC.
Syllabus
ing them to separate will have one of two results: One business will
either move elsewhere or close. The city’s premise cannot be the latter.
The premise must be that businesses—even those that have always been
under one roof—will for the most part disperse rather than shut down,
that the quantity of speech will be substantially undiminished, and that
total secondary effects will be significantly reduced. As to whether
there is sufficient evidence to support this proposition, the Court has
consistently held that a city must have latitude to experiment, at least
at the outset, and that very little evidence is required. See, e. g., Ren-
ton, supra, at 51–52. Here, the proposition to be shown is supported
by common experience and a study showing a correlation between
the concentration of adult establishments and crime. Assuming that
the study supports the city’s original dispersal ordinance, most of the
necessary analysis follows. To justify the ordinance at issue, the city
may infer—from its study and from its own experience—that two adult
businesses under the same roof are no better than two next door, and
that knocking down the wall between the two would not ameliorate any
undesirable secondary effects of their proximity to one another. If the
city’s first ordinance was justified, therefore, then the second is too.
Pp. 449–453.
(d) Because these considerations seem well enough established in
common experience and the Court’s case law, the ordinance survives
summary judgment. P. 453.
O’Connor, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an
opinion, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Scalia and Thomas, JJ., joined.
Scalia, J., filed a concurring opinion, post, p. 443. Kennedy, J., filed an
opinion concurring in the judgment, post, p. 444. Souter, J., filed a dis-
senting opinion, in which Stevens and Ginsburg, JJ., joined, and in
which Breyer, J., joined as to Part II, post, p. 453.
Michael L. Klekner argued the cause for petitioner. With
him on the briefs were James K. Hahn, Rockard J. Delga-
dillo, Claudia McGee Henry, Anthony Saul Alperin, and
Jeri Burge.
John H. Weston argued the cause for respondent. With
him on the briefs was G. Randall Garrou.*
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the State of
Ohio et al. by Betty D. Montgomery, Attorney General of Ohio, David M.
Gormley, State Solicitor, and Elise W. Porter, joined by the Attorneys
General for their respective jurisdictions as follows: Bill Pryor of Ala-

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
429 Cite as: 535 U. S. 425 (2002)
Opinion of O’Connor, J.
Justice O’Connor announced the judgment of the Court
and delivered an opinion, in which The Chief Justice, Jus-
tice Scalia, and Justice Thomas join.
Los Angeles Municipal Code § 12.70(C) (1983), as amended,
prohibits “the establishment or maintenance of more than
one adult entertainment business in the same building,
structure or portion thereof.” Respondents, two adult es-
tablishments that each operated an adult bookstore and an
adult video arcade in the same building, filed a suit under
Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983 (1994 ed., Supp. V), alleg-
ing that § 12.70(C) violates the First Amendment and seek-
ing declaratory and injunctive relief. The District Court
granted summary judgment to respondents, finding that
the city of Los Angeles’ prohibition was a content-based
regulation of speech that failed strict scrutiny. The Court
of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed, but on different
grounds. It held that, even if § 12.70(C) were a content-
neutral regulation, the city failed to demonstrate that the
bama, Janet Napolitano of Arizona, Ken Salazar of Colorado, Richard
Blumenthal of Connecticut, M. Jane Brady of Delaware, Robert A. Butter-
worth of Florida, Alan G. Lance of Idaho, Carla J. Stovall of Kansas, G.
Steven Rowe of Maine, Thomas F. Reilly of Massachusetts, Mike Moore
of Mississippi, Mike McGrath of Montana, Don Stenberg of Nebraska,
Frankie Sue Del Papa of Nevada, Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Herbert
D. Soll of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Mike
Fisher of Pennsylvania, Charles M. Condon of South Carolina, Mark Bar-
nett of South Dakota, John Cornyn of Texas, Mark L. Shurtleff of Utah,
Christine O. Gregoire of Washington, Darrell V. McGraw, Jr., of West
Virginia, and Gay Woodhouse of Wyoming; for the American Planning
Association et al. by Scott D. Bergthold; for the Capitol Resource Institute
et al. by Richard D. Ackerman and Gary G. Kreep; for Morality in Media,
Inc., by Paul J. McGeady and Robin S. Whitehead; and for the U. S. Con-
ference of Mayors et al. by Richard Ruda and James I. Crowley.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the American
Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression et al. by Michael A. Bam-
berger; for the DKT Liberty Project by Julie M. Carpenter; and for the
First Amendment Lawyers Association by Randall D. B. Tigue and Brad-
ley J. Shafer.

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
430 LOS ANGELES v. ALAMEDA BOOKS, INC.
Opinion of O’Connor, J.
prohibition was designed to serve a substantial government
interest. Specifically, the Court of Appeals found that the
city failed to present evidence upon which it could reason-
ably rely to demonstrate a link between multiple-use adult
establishments and negative secondary effects. Therefore,
the Court of Appeals held the Los Angeles prohibition on
such establishments invalid under Renton v. Playtime The-
atres, Inc., 475 U. S. 41 (1986), and its precedents interpret-
ing that case. 222 F. 3d 719, 723–728 (2000). We reverse
and remand. The city of Los Angeles may reasonably rely
on a study it conducted some years before enacting the
present version of § 12.70(C) to demonstrate that its ban on
multiple-use adult establishments serves its interest in re-
ducing crime.
I
In 1977, the city of Los Angeles conducted a compre-
hensive study of adult establishments and concluded that
concentrations of adult businesses are associated with higher
rates of prostitution, robbery, assaults, and thefts in sur-
rounding communities. See App. 35–162 (Los Angeles Dept.
of City Planning, Study of the Effects of the Concentration
of Adult Entertainment Establishments in the City of Los
Angeles (City Plan Case No. 26475, City Council File No. 74–
4521–S.3, June 1977)). Accordingly, the city enacted an or-
dinance prohibiting the establishment, substantial enlarge-
ment, or transfer of ownership of an adult arcade, bookstore,
cabaret, motel, theater, or massage parlor or a place for
sexual encounters within 1,000 feet of another such enter-
prise or within 500 feet of any religious institution, school,
or public park. See Los Angeles Municipal Code § 12.70(C)
(1978).
There is evidence that the intent of the city council when
enacting this prohibition was not only to disperse distinct
adult establishments housed in separate buildings, but also
to disperse distinct adult businesses operated under common
ownership and housed in a single structure. See App. 29

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
431 Cite as: 535 U. S. 425 (2002)
Opinion of O’Connor, J.
(Los Angeles Dept. of City Planning, Amendment—Proposed
Ordinance to Prohibit the Establishment of More than One
Adult Entertainment Business at a Single Location (City
Plan Case No. 26475, City Council File No. 82–0155, Jan. 13,
1983)). The ordinance the city enacted, however, directed
that “[t]he distance between any two adult entertainment
businesses shall be measured in a straight line . . . from
the closest exterior structural wall of each business.” Los
Angeles Municipal Code § 12.70(D) (1978). Subsequent to
enactment, the city realized that this method of calculating
distances created a loophole permitting the concentration of
multiple adult enterprises in a single structure.
Concerned that allowing an adult-oriented department
store to replace a strip of adult establishments could defeat
the goal of the original ordinance, the city council amended
§ 12.70(C) by adding a prohibition on “the establishment or
maintenance of more than one adult entertainment business
in the same building, structure or portion thereof.” Los
Angeles Municipal Code § 12.70(C) (1983). The amended or-
dinance defines an “Adult Entertainment Business” as an
adult arcade, bookstore, cabaret, motel, theater, or mas-
sage parlor or a place for sexual encounters, and notes that
each of these enterprises “shall constitute a separate adult
entertainment business even if operated in conjunction with
another adult entertainment business at the same establish-
ment.” § 12.70(B)(17). The ordinance uses the term “busi-
ness” to refer to certain types of goods or services sold in
adult establishments, rather than the establishment itself.
Relevant for purposes of this case are also the ordinance’s
definitions of adult bookstores and arcades. An “Adult
Bookstore” is an operation that “has as a substantial por-
tion of its stock-in-trade and offers for sale” printed matter
and videocassettes that emphasize the depiction of speci-
fied sexual activities. § 12.70(B)(2)(a). An adult arcade is
an operation where, “for any form of consideration,” five
or fewer patrons together may view films or videocassettes

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
432 LOS ANGELES v. ALAMEDA BOOKS, INC.
Opinion of O’Connor, J.
that emphasize the depiction of specified sexual activities.
§ 12.70(B)(1).
Respondents, Alameda Books, Inc., and Highland Books,
Inc., are two adult establishments operating in Los Angeles.
Neither is located within 1,000 feet of another adult es-
tablishment or 500 feet of any religious institution, public
park, or school. Each establishment occupies less than 3,000
square feet. Both respondents rent and sell sexually ori-
ented products, including videocassettes. Additionally, both
provide booths where patrons can view videocassettes for
a fee. Although respondents are located in different build-
ings, each operates its retail sales and rental operations in
the same commercial space in which its video booths are
located. There are no physical distinctions between the dif-
ferent operations within each establishment and each es-
tablishment has only one entrance. 222 F. 3d, at 721. Re-
spondents concede they are openly operating in violation
of § 12.70(C) of the city’s code, as amended. Brief for Re-
spondents 7; Brief for Petitioner 9.
After a city building inspector found in 1995 that Alameda
Books, Inc., was operating both as an adult bookstore and
an adult arcade in violation of the city’s adult zoning reg-
ulations, respondents joined as plaintiffs and sued under
42 U. S. C. § 1983 for declaratory and injunctive relief to
prevent enforcement of the ordinance. 222 F. 3d, at 721.
At issue in this case is count I of the complaint, which alleges
a facial violation of the First Amendment. Both the city
and respondents filed cross-motions for summary judgment.
The District Court for the Central District of California
initially denied both motions on the First Amendment issues
in count I, concluding that there was “a genuine issue of
fact whether the operation of a combination video rental
and video viewing business leads to the harmful secondary
effects associated with a concentration of separate busi-
nesses in a single urban area.” App. 255. After respond-
ents filed a motion for reconsideration, however, the District

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
433 Cite as: 535 U. S. 425 (2002)
Opinion of O’Connor, J.
Court found that Los Angeles’ prohibition on multiple-use
adult establishments was not a content-neutral regulation
of speech. App. to Pet. for Cert. 51. It reasoned that nei-
ther the city’s 1977 study nor a report cited in Hart Book
Stores v. Edmisten, 612 F. 2d 821 (CA4 1979) (uphold-
ing a North Carolina statute that also banned multiple-use
adult establishments), supported a reasonable belief that
multiple-use adult establishments produced the secondary
effects the city asserted as content-neutral justifications for
its prohibition. App. to Pet. for Cert. 34–47. Therefore,
the District Court proceeded to subject the Los Angeles
ordinance to strict scrutiny. Because it felt that the city
did not offer evidence to demonstrate that its prohibition is
necessary to serve a compelling government interest, the
District Court granted summary judgment for respondents
and issued a permanent injunction enjoining the enforcement
of the ordinance against respondents. Id., at 51.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed, al-
though on different grounds. The Court of Appeals deter-
mined that it did not have to reach the District Court’s
decision that the Los Angeles ordinance was content based
because, even if the ordinance were content neutral, the
city failed to present evidence upon which it could reason-
ably rely to demonstrate that its regulation of multiple-use
establishments is “designed to serve” the city’s substantial
interest in reducing crime. The challenged ordinance was
therefore invalid under Renton, 475 U. S. 41. 222 F. 3d,
at 723–724. We granted certiorari, 532 U. S. 902 (2001), to
clarify the standard for determining whether an ordinance
serves a substantial government interest under Renton,
supra.
II
In Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., supra, this Court
considered the validity of a municipal ordinance that pro-
hibited any adult movie theater from locating within 1,000
feet of any residential zone, family dwelling, church, park,

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
434 LOS ANGELES v. ALAMEDA BOOKS, INC.
Opinion of O’Connor, J.
or school. Our analysis of the ordinance proceeded in three
steps. First, we found that the ordinance did not ban adult
theaters altogether, but merely required that they be dis-
tanced from certain sensitive locations. The ordinance was
properly analyzed, therefore, as a time, place, and manner
regulation. Id., at 46. We next considered whether the
ordinance was content neutral or content based. If the
regulation were content based, it would be considered pre-
sumptively invalid and subject to strict scrutiny. Simon &
Schuster, Inc. v. Members of N. Y. State Crime Victims Bd.,
502 U. S. 105, 115, 118 (1991); Arkansas Writers’ Project, Inc.
v. Ragland, 481 U. S. 221, 230–231 (1987). We held, how-
ever, that the Renton ordinance was aimed not at the content
of the films shown at adult theaters, but rather at the sec-
ondary effects of such theaters on the surrounding commu-
nity, namely, at crime rates, property values, and the quality
of the city’s neighborhoods. Therefore, the ordinance was
deemed content neutral. Renton, supra, at 47–49. Finally,
given this finding, we stated that the ordinance would be
upheld so long as the city of Renton showed that its or-
dinance was designed to serve a substantial government
interest and that reasonable alternative avenues of com-
munication remained available. 475 U. S., at 50. We con-
cluded that Renton had met this burden, and we upheld its
ordinance. Id., at 51–54.
The Court of Appeals applied the same analysis to eval-
uate the Los Angeles ordinance challenged in this case.
First, the Court of Appeals found that the Los Angeles
ordinance was not a complete ban on adult entertainment
establishments, but rather a sort of adult zoning regulation,
which Renton considered a time, place, and manner regula-
tion. 222 F. 3d, at 723. The Court of Appeals turned to the
second step of the Renton analysis, but did not draw any
conclusions about whether the Los Angeles ordinance was
content based. It explained that, even if the Los Angeles
ordinance were content neutral, the city had failed to demon-

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
435 Cite as: 535 U. S. 425 (2002)
Opinion of O’Connor, J.
strate, as required by the third step of the Renton analysis,
that its prohibition on multiple-use adult establishments was
designed to serve its substantial interest in reducing crime.
The Court of Appeals noted that the primary evidence re-
lied upon by Los Angeles to demonstrate a link between
combination adult businesses and harmful secondary effects
was the 1977 study conducted by the city’s planning depart-
ment. The Court of Appeals found, however, that the city
could not rely on that study because it did not “ ‘suppor[t] a
reasonable belief that [the] combination [of] businesses . . .
produced harmful secondary effects of the type asserted.’ ”
222 F. 3d, at 724. For similar reasons, the Court of Appeals
also rejected the city’s attempt to rely on a report on health
conditions inside adult video arcades described in Hart Book
Stores, supra, a case that upheld a North Carolina statute
similar to the Los Angeles ordinance challenged in this case.
The central component of the 1977 study is a report on
city crime patterns provided by the Los Angeles Police De-
partment. That report indicated that, during the period
from 1965 to 1975, certain crime rates grew much faster in
Hollywood, which had the largest concentration of adult es-
tablishments in the city, than in the city of Los Angeles as
a whole. For example, robberies increased 3 times faster
and prostitution 15 times faster in Hollywood than citywide.
App. 124–125.
The 1977 study also contains reports conducted directly
by the staff of the Los Angeles Planning Department that
examine the relationship between adult establishments and
property values. These staff reports, however, are incon-
clusive. Not surprisingly, the parties focus their dispute
before this Court on the report by the Los Angeles Police
Department. Because we find that reducing crime is a sub-
stantial government interest and that the police department
report’s conclusions regarding crime patterns may reason-
ably be relied upon to overcome summary judgment against

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
436 LOS ANGELES v. ALAMEDA BOOKS, INC.
Opinion of O’Connor, J.
the city, we also focus on the portion of the 1977 study drawn
from the police department report.
The Court of Appeals found that the 1977 study did not
reasonably support the inference that a concentration of
adult operations within a single adult establishment pro-
duced greater levels of criminal activity because the study
focused on the effect that a concentration of establish-
ments—not a concentration of operations within a single
establishment—had on crime rates. The Court of Ap-
peals pointed out that the study treated combination adult
bookstore/arcades as single establishments and did not
study the effect of any separate-standing adult bookstore
or arcade. 222 F. 3d, at 724.
The Court of Appeals misunderstood the implications of
the 1977 study. While the study reveals that areas with
high concentrations of adult establishments are associated
with high crime rates, areas with high concentrations of
adult establishments are also areas with high concentrations
of adult operations, albeit each in separate establishments.
It was therefore consistent with the findings of the 1977
study, and thus reasonable, for Los Angeles to suppose that
a concentration of adult establishments is correlated with
high crime rates because a concentration of operations in
one locale draws, for example, a greater concentration of
adult consumers to the neighborhood, and a high density
of such consumers either attracts or generates criminal ac-
tivity. The assumption behind this theory is that having
a number of adult operations in one single adult estab-
lishment draws the same dense foot traffic as having a
number of distinct adult establishments in close proximity,
much as minimalls and department stores similarly attract
the crowds of consumers. Brief for Petitioner 28. Under
this view, it is rational for the city to infer that reducing
the concentration of adult operations in a neighborhood,
whether within separate establishments or in one large es-
tablishment, will reduce crime rates.

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
437 Cite as: 535 U. S. 425 (2002)
Opinion of O’Connor, J.
Neither the Court of Appeals, nor respondents, nor the
dissent provides any reason to question the city’s theory.
In particular, they do not offer a competing theory, let alone
data, that explains why the elevated crime rates in neigh-
borhoods with a concentration of adult establishments can
be attributed entirely to the presence of permanent walls
between, and separate entrances to, each individual adult
operation. While the city certainly bears the burden of pro-
viding evidence that supports a link between concentrations
of adult operations and asserted secondary effects, it does
not bear the burden of providing evidence that rules out
every theory for the link between concentrations of adult
establishments that is inconsistent with its own.
The error that the Court of Appeals made is that it re-
quired the city to prove that its theory about a concentra-
tion of adult operations attracting crowds of customers,
much like a minimall or department store does, is a neces-
sary consequence of the 1977 study. For example, the Court
of Appeals refused to allow the city to draw the inference
that “the expansion of an adult bookstore to include an adult
arcade would increase” business activity and “produce the
harmful secondary effects identified in the Study.” 222 F.
3d, at 726. It reasoned that such an inference would jus-
tify limits on the inventory of an adult bookstore, not a
ban on the combination of an adult bookstore and an adult
arcade. The Court of Appeals simply replaced the city’s
theory—that having many different operations in close prox-
imity attracts crowds—with its own—that the size of an
operation attracts crowds. If the Court of Appeals’ theory
is correct, then inventory limits make more sense. If the
city’s theory is correct, then a prohibition on the combination
of businesses makes more sense. Both theories are consist-
ent with the data in the 1977 study. The Court of Appeals’
analysis, however, implicitly requires the city to prove that
its theory is the only one that can plausibly explain the data

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
438 LOS ANGELES v. ALAMEDA BOOKS, INC.
Opinion of O’Connor, J.
because only in this manner can the city refute the Court
of Appeals’ logic.
Respondents make the same logical error as the Court
of Appeals when they suggest that the city’s prohibition
on multiuse establishments will raise crime rates in certain
neighborhoods because it will force certain adult businesses
to relocate to areas without any other adult businesses. Re-
spondents’ claim assumes that the 1977 study proves that
all adult businesses, whether or not they are located near
other adult businesses, generate crime. This is a plausible
reading of the results from the 1977 study, but respondents
do not demonstrate that it is a compelled reading. Nor do
they provide evidence that refutes the city’s interpretation
of the study, under which the city’s prohibition should on
balance reduce crime. If this Court were nevertheless to
accept respondents’ speculation, it would effectively require
that the city provide evidence that not only supports the
claim that its ordinance serves an important government
interest, but also does not provide support for any other
approach to serve that interest.
In Renton, we specifically refused to set such a high bar
for municipalities that want to address merely the sec-
ondary effects of protected speech. We held that a munici-
pality may rely on any evidence that is “reasonably believed
to be relevant” for demonstrating a connection between
speech and a substantial, independent government interest.
475 U. S., at 51–52; see also, e. g., Barnes v. Glen Theatre,
Inc., 501 U. S. 560, 584 (1991) (Souter, J., concurring in
judgment) (permitting municipality to use evidence that
adult theaters are correlated with harmful secondary effects
to support its claim that nude dancing is likely to produce
the same effects). This is not to say that a municipality can
get away with shoddy data or reasoning. The municipality’s
evidence must fairly support the municipality’s rationale
for its ordinance. If plaintiffs fail to cast direct doubt on
this rationale, either by demonstrating that the munici-

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
439 Cite as: 535 U. S. 425 (2002)
Opinion of O’Connor, J.
pality’s evidence does not support its rationale or by fur-
nishing evidence that disputes the municipality’s factual
findings, the municipality meets the standard set forth in
Renton. If plaintiffs succeed in casting doubt on a munici-
pality’s rationale in either manner, the burden shifts back
to the municipality to supplement the record with evidence
renewing support for a theory that justifies its ordinance.
See, e. g., Erie v. Pap’s A. M., 529 U. S. 277, 298 (2000) (plu-
rality opinion). This case is at a very early stage in this
process. It arrives on a summary judgment motion by re-
spondents defended only by complaints that the 1977 study
fails to prove that the city’s justification for its ordinance is
necessarily correct. Therefore, we conclude that the city, at
this stage of the litigation, has complied with the evidentiary
requirement in Renton.
Justice Souter faults the city for relying on the 1977
study not because the study fails to support the city’s theory
that adult department stores, like adult minimalls, attract
customers and thus crime, but because the city does not
demonstrate that freestanding single-use adult establish-
ments reduce crime. See post, at 460–462 (dissenting opin-
ion). In effect, Justice Souter asks the city to demon-
strate, not merely by appeal to common sense, but also with
empirical data, that its ordinance will successfully lower
crime. Our cases have never required that municipalities
make such a showing, certainly not without actual and con-
vincing evidence from plaintiffs to the contrary. See, e. g.,
Barnes, supra, at 583–584 (Souter, J., concurring in judg-
ment). Such a requirement would go too far in undermining
our settled position that municipalities must be given a
“ ‘reasonable opportunity to experiment with solutions’ ” to
address the secondary effects of protected speech. Renton,
supra, at 52 (quoting Young v. American Mini Theatres,
Inc., 427 U. S. 50, 71 (1976) (plurality opinion)). A munici-
pality considering an innovative solution may not have data
that could demonstrate the efficacy of its proposal because

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
440 LOS ANGELES v. ALAMEDA BOOKS, INC.
Opinion of O’Connor, J.
the solution would, by definition, not have been implemented
previously. The city’s ordinance banning multiple-use adult
establishments is such a solution. Respondents contend
that there are no adult video arcades in Los Angeles County
that operate independently of adult bookstores. See Brief
for Respondents 41. But without such arcades, the city does
not have a treatment group to compare with the control
group of multiple-use adult establishments, and without such
a comparison Justice Souter would strike down the city’s
ordinance. This leaves the city with no means to address
the secondary effects with which it is concerned.
Our deference to the evidence presented by the city of Los
Angeles is the product of a careful balance between com-
peting interests. On the one hand, we have an “obligation
to exercise independent judgment when First Amendment
rights are implicated.” Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
v. FCC, 512 U. S. 622, 666 (1994) (plurality opinion); see also
Landmark Communications, Inc. v. Virginia, 435 U. S. 829,
843–844 (1978). On the other hand, we must acknowledge
that the Los Angeles City Council is in a better position than
the Judiciary to gather and evaluate data on local problems.
See Turner, supra, at 665–666; Erie, supra, at 297–298 (plu-
rality opinion). We are also guided by the fact that Renton
requires that municipal ordinances receive only intermediate
scrutiny if they are content neutral. 475 U. S., at 48–50.
There is less reason to be concerned that municipalities will
use these ordinances to discriminate against unpopular
speech. See Erie, supra, at 298–299.
Justice Souter would have us rethink this balance, and
indeed the entire Renton framework. In Renton, the Court
distinguished the inquiry into whether a municipal ordi-
nance is content neutral from the inquiry into whether it is
“designed to serve a substantial government interest and
do not unreasonably limit alternative avenues of commu-
nication.” 475 U. S., at 47–54. The former requires courts
to verify that the “predominate concerns” motivating the

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
441 Cite as: 535 U. S. 425 (2002)
Opinion of O’Connor, J.
ordinance “were with the secondary effects of adult
[speech], and not with the content of adult [speech].” Id.,
at 47 (emphasis deleted). The latter inquiry goes one step
further and asks whether the municipality can demonstrate
a connection between the speech regulated by the ordinance
and the secondary effects that motivated the adoption of the
ordinance. Only at this stage did Renton contemplate that
courts would examine evidence concerning regulated speech
and secondary effects. Id., at 50–52. Justice Souter
would either merge these two inquiries or move the eviden-
tiary analysis into the inquiry on content neutrality, and
raise the evidentiary bar that a municipality must pass. His
logic is that verifying that the ordinance actually reduces the
secondary effects asserted would ensure that zoning regula-
tions are not merely content-based regulations in disguise.
See post, at 457–458.
We think this proposal unwise. First, none of the parties
request the Court to depart from the Renton framework.
Nor is the proposal fairly encompassed in the question
presented, which focuses on the sorts of evidence upon
which the city may rely to demonstrate that its ordinance
is designed to serve a substantial governmental interest.
Pet. for Cert. i. Second, there is no evidence suggesting
that courts have difficulty determining whether municipal
ordinances are motivated primarily by the content of adult
speech or by its secondary effects without looking to evi-
dence connecting such speech to the asserted secondary
effects. In this case, the Court of Appeals has not yet had
an opportunity to address the issue, having assumed for the
sake of argument that the city’s ordinance is content neutral.
222 F. 3d, at 723. It would be inappropriate for this Court
to reach the question of content neutrality before permitting
the lower court to pass upon it. Finally, Justice Souter
does not clarify the sort of evidence upon which municipali-
ties may rely to meet the evidentiary burden he would re-
quire. It is easy to say that courts must demand evidence

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
442 LOS ANGELES v. ALAMEDA BOOKS, INC.
Opinion of O’Connor, J.
when “common experience” or “common assumptions” are
incorrect, see post, at 459, but it is difficult for courts to know
ahead of time whether that condition is met. Municipalities
will, in general, have greater experience with and under-
standing of the secondary effects that follow certain pro-
tected speech than will the courts. See Erie, 529 U. S., at
297–298 (plurality opinion). For this reason our cases re-
quire only that municipalities rely upon evidence that is
“ ‘reasonably believed to be relevant’ ” to the secondary
effects that they seek to address. Id., at 296.
III
The city of Los Angeles argues that its prohibition on
multiuse establishments draws further support from a study
of the poor health conditions in adult video arcades described
in Hart Book Stores, a case that upheld a North Carolina
ordinance similar to that challenged here. See 612 F. 2d,
at 828–829, n. 9. Respondents argue that the city cannot
rely on evidence from Hart Book Stores because the city can-
not prove it examined that evidence before it enacted the
current version of § 12.70(C). Brief for Respondents 21.
Respondents note, moreover, that unsanitary conditions in
adult video arcades would persist regardless of whether
arcades were operated in the same buildings as, say, adult
bookstores. Ibid.
We do not, however, need to resolve the parties’ dispute
over evidence cited in Hart Book Stores. Unlike the city
of Renton, the city of Los Angeles conducted its own study of
adult businesses. We have concluded that the Los Angeles
study provides evidence to support the city’s theory that a
concentration of adult operations in one locale attracts crime,
and can be reasonably relied upon to demonstrate that
Los Angeles Municipal Code § 12.70(C) (1983) is designed
to promote the city’s interest in reducing crime. Therefore,
the city need not present foreign studies to overcome the
summary judgment against it.

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
443 Cite as: 535 U. S. 425 (2002)
Scalia, J., concurring
Before concluding, it should be noted that respondents
argue, as an alternative basis to sustain the Court of Ap-
peals’ judgment, that the Los Angeles ordinance is not a
typical zoning regulation. Rather, respondents explain, the
prohibition on multiuse adult establishments is effectively a
ban on adult video arcades because no such business exists
independently of an adult bookstore. Brief for Respond-
ents 12–13. Respondents request that the Court hold that
the Los Angeles ordinance is not a time, place, and manner
regulation, and that the Court subject the ordinance to strict
scrutiny. This also appears to be the theme of Justice
Kennedy’s concurrence. He contends that “[a] city may not
assert that it will reduce secondary effects by reducing
speech in the same proportion.” Post, at 449 (opinion con-
curring in judgment). We consider that unobjectionable
proposition as simply a reformulation of the requirement
that an ordinance warrants intermediate scrutiny only if it
is a time, place, and manner regulation and not a ban. The
Court of Appeals held, however, that the city’s prohibition
on the combination of adult bookstores and arcades is not
a ban and respondents did not petition for review of that
determination.
Accordingly, we reverse the Court of Appeals’ judgment
granting summary judgment to respondents and remand the
case for further proceedings.
It is so ordered.
Justice Scalia, concurring.
I join the plurality opinion because I think it represents
a correct application of our jurisprudence concerning regu-
lation of the “secondary effects” of pornographic speech.
As I have said elsewhere, however, in a case such as this
our First Amendment traditions make “secondary effects”
analysis quite unnecessary. The Constitution does not pre-
vent those communities that wish to do so from regulat-
ing, or indeed entirely suppressing, the business of pander-

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
444 LOS ANGELES v. ALAMEDA BOOKS, INC.
Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment
ing sex. See, e. g., Erie v. Pap’s A. M., 529 U. S. 277, 310
(2000) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment); FW/PBS, Inc. v.
Dallas, 493 U. S. 215, 256–261 (1990) (Scalia, J., concurring
in part and dissenting in part).
Justice Kennedy, concurring in the judgment.
Speech can produce tangible consequences. It can change
minds. It can prompt actions. These primary effects sig-
nify the power and the necessity of free speech. Speech can
also cause secondary effects, however, unrelated to the im-
pact of the speech on its audience. A newspaper factory
may cause pollution, and a billboard may obstruct a view.
These secondary consequences are not always immune from
regulation by zoning laws even though they are produced
by speech.
Municipal governments know that high concentrations of
adult businesses can damage the value and the integrity of a
neighborhood. The damage is measurable; it is all too real.
The law does not require a city to ignore these consequences
if it uses its zoning power in a reasonable way to ameliorate
them without suppressing speech. A city’s “interest in at-
tempting to preserve the quality of urban life is one that
must be accorded high respect.” Young v. American Mini
Theatres, Inc., 427 U. S. 50, 71 (1976) (plurality opinion).
The question in this case is whether Los Angeles can seek
to reduce these tangible, adverse consequences by sepa-
rating adult speech businesses from one another—even two
businesses that have always been under the same roof.
In my view our precedents may allow the city to impose its
regulation in the exercise of the zoning authority. The city
is not, at least, to be foreclosed by summary judgment, so
I concur in the judgment.
This separate statement seems to me necessary, however,
for two reasons. First, Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc.,
475 U. S. 41 (1986), described a similar ordinance as “content
neutral,” and I agree with the dissent that the designation

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
445 Cite as: 535 U. S. 425 (2002)
Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment
is imprecise. Second, in my view, the plurality’s application
of Renton might constitute a subtle expansion, with which
I do not concur.
I
In Renton, the Court determined that while the material
inside adult bookstores and movie theaters is speech, the
consequent sordidness outside is not. The challenge is to
correct the latter while leaving the former, as far as possible,
untouched. If a city can decrease the crime and blight asso-
ciated with certain speech by the traditional exercise of its
zoning power, and at the same time leave the quantity and
accessibility of the speech substantially undiminished, there
is no First Amendment objection. This is so even if the
measure identifies the problem outside by reference to the
speech inside—that is, even if the measure is in that sense
content based.
On the other hand, a city may not regulate the secondary
effects of speech by suppressing the speech itself. A city
may not, for example, impose a content-based fee or tax.
See Arkansas Writers’ Project, Inc. v. Ragland, 481 U. S.
221, 230 (1987) (“[O]fficial scrutiny of the content of publica-
tions as the basis for imposing a tax is entirely incompatible
with the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of the
press”). This is true even if the government purports to
justify the fee by reference to secondary effects. See For-
syth County v. Nationalist Movement, 505 U. S. 123, 134–135
(1992). Though the inference may be inexorable that a city
could reduce secondary effects by reducing speech, this is not
a permissible strategy. The purpose and effect of a zoning
ordinance must be to reduce secondary effects and not to
reduce speech.
A zoning measure can be consistent with the First Amend-
ment if it is likely to cause a significant decrease in second-
ary effects and a trivial decrease in the quantity of speech.
It is well documented that multiple adult businesses in
close proximity may change the character of a neighborhood

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
446 LOS ANGELES v. ALAMEDA BOOKS, INC.
Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment
for the worse. Those same businesses spread across the
city may not have the same deleterious effects. At least
in theory, a dispersal ordinance causes these businesses to
separate rather than to close, so negative externalities are
diminished but speech is not.
The calculus is a familiar one to city planners, for many
enterprises other than adult businesses also cause un-
desirable externalities. Factories, for example, may cause
pollution, so a city may seek to reduce the cost of that exter-
nality by restricting factories to areas far from residential
neighborhoods. With careful urban planning a city in this
way may reduce the costs of pollution for communities, while
at the same time allowing the productive work of the fac-
tories to continue. The challenge is to protect the activity
inside while controlling side effects outside.
Such an ordinance might, like a speech restriction, be “con-
tent based.” It might, for example, single out slaughter-
houses for specific zoning treatment, restricting them to a
particularly remote part of town. Without knowing more,
however, one would hardly presume that because the ordi-
nance is specific to that business, the city seeks to dis-
criminate against it or help a favored group. One would
presume, rather, that the ordinance targets not the business
but its particular noxious side effects. But cf. Slaughter-
House Cases, 16 Wall. 36 (1873). The business might well
be the city’s most valued enterprise; nevertheless, because
of the pollution it causes, it may warrant special zoning treat-
ment. This sort of singling out is not impermissible content
discrimination; it is sensible urban planning. Cf. Village
of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U. S. 365, 388 (1926)
(“A nuisance may be merely a right thing in the wrong
place,—like a pig in the parlor instead of the barnyard. If
the validity of the legislative classification for zoning pur-
poses be fairly debatable, the legislative judgment must be
allowed to control”).

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
447 Cite as: 535 U. S. 425 (2002)
Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment
True, the First Amendment protects speech and not
slaughterhouses. But in both contexts, the inference of im-
permissible discrimination is not strong. An equally strong
inference is that the ordinance is targeted not at the activity,
but at its side effects. If a zoning ordinance is directed to
the secondary effects of adult speech, the ordinance does
not necessarily constitute impermissible content discrimi-
nation. A zoning law need not be blind to the secondary
effects of adult speech, so long as the purpose of the law is
not to suppress it.
The ordinance at issue in this case is not limited to ex-
pressive activities. It also extends, for example, to massage
parlors, which the city has found to cause similar second-
ary effects. See Los Angeles Municipal Code §§ 12.70(B)(8)
(1978), 12.70(B)(17) (1983), 12.70(C) (1986), as amended.
This ordinance, moreover, is just one part of an elaborate
web of land-use regulations in Los Angeles, all of which are
intended to promote the social value of the land as a whole
without suppressing some activities or favoring others.
See § 12.02 (“The purpose of this article is to consolidate and
coordinate all existing zoning regulations and provisions into
one comprehensive zoning plan . . . in order to encourage the
most appropriate use of land . . . and to promote the health,
safety, and the general welfare . . .”). All this further sug-
gests that the ordinance is more in the nature of a typical
land-use restriction and less in the nature of a law suppress-
ing speech.
For these reasons, the ordinance is not so suspect that we
must employ the usual rigorous analysis that content-based
laws demand in other instances. The ordinance may be a
covert attack on speech, but we should not presume it to
be so. In the language of our First Amendment doctrine
it calls for intermediate and not strict scrutiny, as we held
in Renton.

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
448 LOS ANGELES v. ALAMEDA BOOKS, INC.
Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment
II
In Renton, the Court began by noting that a zoning ordi-
nance is a time, place, or manner restriction. The Court
then proceeded to consider the question whether the ordi-
nance was “content based.” The ordinance “by its terms
[was] designed to prevent crime, protect the city’s retail
trade, maintain property values, and generally protec[t] and
preserv[e] the quality of [the city’s] neighborhoods, commer-
cial districts, and the quality of urban life, not to suppress
the expression of unpopular views.” 475 U. S., at 48 (inter-
nal quotation marks omitted). On this premise, the Court
designated the restriction “content neutral.” Ibid.
The Court appeared to recognize, however, that the desig-
nation was something of a fiction, which, perhaps, is why
it kept the phrase in quotes. After all, whether a statute is
content neutral or content based is something that can be
determined on the face of it; if the statute describes speech
by content then it is content based. And the ordinance in
Renton “treat[ed] theaters that specialize in adult films
differently from other kinds of theaters.” Id., at 47. The
fiction that this sort of ordinance is content neutral—or
“content neutral”—is perhaps more confusing than helpful,
as Justice Souter demonstrates, see post, at 457 (dissent-
ing opinion). It is also not a fiction that has commanded our
consistent adherence. See Thomas v. Chicago Park Dist.,
534 U. S. 316, 322, and n. 2 (2002) (suggesting that a licensing
scheme targeting only those businesses purveying sexually
explicit speech is not content neutral). These ordinances
are content based, and we should call them so.
Nevertheless, for the reasons discussed above, the cen-
tral holding of Renton is sound: A zoning restriction that
is designed to decrease secondary effects and not speech
should be subject to intermediate rather than strict scrutiny.
Generally, the government has no power to restrict speech
based on content, but there are exceptions to the rule. See
Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of N. Y. State Crime

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
449 Cite as: 535 U. S. 425 (2002)
Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment
Victims Bd., 502 U. S. 105, 126–127 (1991) (Kennedy, J., con-
curring in judgment). And zoning regulations do not auto-
matically raise the specter of impermissible content dis-
crimination, even if they are content based, because they
have a prima facie legitimate purpose: to limit the negative
externalities of land use. As a matter of common experi-
ence, these sorts of ordinances are more like a zoning re-
striction on slaughterhouses and less like a tax on unpopular
newspapers. The zoning context provides a built-in legiti-
mate rationale, which rebuts the usual presumption that
content-based restrictions are unconstitutional. For this
reason, we apply intermediate rather than strict scrutiny.
III
The narrow question presented in this case is whether the
ordinance at issue is invalid “because the city did not study
the negative effects of such combinations of adult businesses,
but rather relied on judicially approved statutory precedent
from other jurisdictions.” Pet. for Cert. i. This question is
actually two questions. First, what proposition does a city
need to advance in order to sustain a secondary-effects ordi-
nance? Second, how much evidence is required to support
the proposition? The plurality skips to the second question
and gives the correct answer; but in my view more attention
must be given to the first.
At the outset, we must identify the claim a city must make
in order to justify a content-based zoning ordinance. As dis-
cussed above, a city must advance some basis to show that
its regulation has the purpose and effect of suppressing
secondary effects, while leaving the quantity and accessi-
bility of speech substantially intact. The ordinance may
identify the speech based on content, but only as a short-
hand for identifying the secondary effects outside. A city
may not assert that it will reduce secondary effects by reduc-
ing speech in the same proportion. On this point, I agree
with Justice Souter. See post, at 457. The rationale of

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
450 LOS ANGELES v. ALAMEDA BOOKS, INC.
Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment
the ordinance must be that it will suppress secondary ef-
fects—and not by suppressing speech.
The plurality’s statement of the proposition to be sup-
ported is somewhat different. It suggests that Los Angeles
could reason as follows: (1) “a concentration of operations in
one locale draws . . . a greater concentration of adult con-
sumers to the neighborhood, and a high density of such
consumers either attracts or generates criminal activity”;
(2) “having a number of adult operations in one single
adult establishment draws the same dense foot traffic as
having a number of distinct adult establishments in close
proximity”; (3) “reducing the concentration of adult opera-
tions in a neighborhood, whether within separate estab-
lishments or in one large establishment, will reduce crime
rates.” Ante, at 436.
These propositions all seem reasonable, and the inferences
required to get from one to the next are sensible. Never-
theless, this syllogism fails to capture an important part
of the inquiry. The plurality’s analysis does not address how
speech will fare under the city’s ordinance. As discussed,
the necessary rationale for applying intermediate scrutiny is
the promise that zoning ordinances like this one may reduce
the costs of secondary effects without substantially reducing
speech. For this reason, it does not suffice to say that in-
convenience will reduce demand and fewer patrons will lead
to fewer secondary effects. This reasoning would as easily
justify a content-based tax: Increased prices will reduce
demand, and fewer customers will mean fewer secondary
effects. But a content-based tax may not be justified in this
manner. See Arkansas Writers’ Project, Inc. v. Ragland,
481 U. S. 221 (1987); Forsyth County v. Nationalist Move-
ment, 505 U. S. 123 (1992). It is no trick to reduce secondary
effects by reducing speech or its audience; but a city may not
attack secondary effects indirectly by attacking speech.
The analysis requires a few more steps. If two adult busi-
nesses are under the same roof, an ordinance requiring them

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
451 Cite as: 535 U. S. 425 (2002)
Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment
to separate will have one of two results: One business will
either move elsewhere or close. The city’s premise cannot
be the latter. It is true that cutting adult speech in half
would probably reduce secondary effects proportionately.
But again, a promised proportional reduction does not suf-
fice. Content-based taxes could achieve that, yet these are
impermissible.
The premise, therefore, must be that businesses—even
those that have always been under one roof—will for the
most part disperse rather than shut down. True, this prem-
ise has its own conundrum. As Justice Souter writes,
“[t]he city . . . claims no interest in the proliferation of adult
establishments.” Post, at 461. The claim, therefore, must
be that this ordinance will cause two businesses to split
rather than one to close, that the quantity of speech will be
substantially undiminished, and that total secondary effects
will be significantly reduced. This must be the rationale of
a dispersal statute.
Only after identifying the proposition to be proved can
we ask the second part of the question presented: is there
sufficient evidence to support the proposition? As to this,
we have consistently held that a city must have latitude to
experiment, at least at the outset, and that very little evi-
dence is required. See, e. g., Renton, 475 U. S., at 51–52
(“The First Amendment does not require a city, before enact-
ing such an ordinance, to conduct new studies or produce
evidence independent of that already generated by other
cities, so long as whatever evidence the city relies upon is
reasonably believed to be relevant to the problem that the
city addresses”); Young, 427 U. S., at 71 (“[T]he city must be
allowed a reasonable opportunity to experiment with solu-
tions to admittedly serious problems”); Erie v. Pap’s A. M.,
529 U. S. 277, 300–301 (2000) (plurality opinion). As a gen-
eral matter, courts should not be in the business of second-
guessing fact-bound empirical assessments of city planners.
See Renton, supra, at 51–52. The Los Angeles City Coun-

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
452 LOS ANGELES v. ALAMEDA BOOKS, INC.
Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment
cil knows the streets of Los Angeles better than we do.
See Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 512 U. S. 622,
665–666 (1994); Erie, supra, at 297–298 (plurality opinion).
It is entitled to rely on that knowledge; and if its inferences
appear reasonable, we should not say there is no basis for
its conclusion.
In this case the proposition to be shown is supported by
a single study and common experience. The city’s study
shows a correlation between the concentration of adult es-
tablishments and crime. Two or more adult businesses in
close proximity seem to attract a critical mass of unsavory
characters, and the crime rate may increase as a result.
The city, therefore, sought to disperse these businesses.
Los Angeles Municipal Code § 12.70(C) (1983), as amended.
This original ordinance is not challenged here, and we may
assume that it is constitutional.
If we assume that the study supports the original ordi-
nance, then most of the necessary analysis follows. We may
posit that two adult stores next door to each other attract
100 patrons per day. The two businesses split apart might
attract 49 patrons each. (Two patrons, perhaps, will be
discouraged by the inconvenience of the separation—a rela-
tively small cost to speech.) On the other hand, the re-
duction in secondary effects might be dramatic, because
secondary effects may require a critical mass. Depending
on the economics of vice, 100 potential customers/victims
might attract a coterie of thieves, prostitutes, and other
ne’er-do-wells; yet 49 might attract none at all. If so, a
dispersal ordinance would cause a great reduction in second-
ary effects at very small cost to speech. Indeed, the very
absence of secondary effects might increase the audience
for the speech; perhaps for every two people who are dis-
couraged by the inconvenience of two-stop shopping, another
two are encouraged by hospitable surroundings. In that
case, secondary effects might be eliminated at no cost to

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
453 Cite as: 535 U. S. 425 (2002)
Souter, J., dissenting
speech whatsoever, and both the city and the speaker will
have their interests well served.
Only one small step remains to justify the ordinance at
issue in this case. The city may next infer—from its study
and from its own experience—that two adult businesses
under the same roof are no better than two next door. The
city could reach the reasonable conclusion that knocking
down the wall between two adult businesses does not amelio-
rate any undesirable secondary effects of their proximity
to one another. If the city’s first ordinance was justified,
therefore, then the second is too. Dispersing two adult busi-
nesses under one roof is reasonably likely to cause a sub-
stantial reduction in secondary effects while reducing speech
very little.
IV
These propositions are well established in common experi-
ence and in zoning policies that we have already examined,
and for these reasons this ordinance is not invalid on its face.
If these assumptions can be proved unsound at trial, then
the ordinance might not withstand intermediate scrutiny.
The ordinance does, however, survive the summary judg-
ment motion that the Court of Appeals ordered granted in
this case.
Justice Souter, with whom Justice Stevens and
Justice Ginsburg join, and with whom Justice Breyer
joins as to Part II, dissenting.
In 1977, the city of Los Angeles studied sections of the
city with high and low concentrations of adult business es-
tablishments catering to the market for the erotic. The city
found no certain correlation between the location of those
establishments and depressed property values, but it did
find some correlation between areas of higher concentra-
tions of such business and higher crime rates. On that
basis, Los Angeles followed the examples of other cities in
adopting a zoning ordinance requiring dispersion of adult

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
454 LOS ANGELES v. ALAMEDA BOOKS, INC.
Souter, J., dissenting
establishments. I assume that the ordinance was consti-
tutional when adopted, see, e. g., Young v. American Mini
Theatres, Inc., 427 U. S. 50 (1976), and assume for pur-
poses of this case that the original ordinance remains valid
today.1
The city subsequently amended its ordinance to forbid
clusters of such businesses at one address, as in a mall. The
city has, in turn, taken a third step to apply this amendment
to prohibit even a single proprietor from doing business in a
traditional way that combines an adult bookstore, selling
books, magazines, and videos, with an adult arcade, consist-
ing of open viewing booths, where potential purchasers of
videos can view them for a fee.
From a policy of dispersing adult establishments, the city
has thus moved to a policy of dividing them in two. The
justification claimed for this application of the new policy
remains, however, the 1977 survey, as supplemented by the
authority of one decided case on regulating adult arcades in
another State. The case authority is not on point, see infra,
at 461–462, n. 4, and the 1977 survey provides no support
for the breakup policy. Its evidentiary insufficiency bears
emphasis and is the principal reason that I respectfully dis-
sent from the Court’s judgment today.
I
This ordinance stands or falls on the results of what our
cases speak of as intermediate scrutiny, generally con-
trasted with the demanding standard applied under the First
Amendment to a content-based regulation of expression.
The variants of middle-tier tests cover a grab bag of restric-
tive statutes, with a corresponding variety of justifications.
1 Although amicus First Amendment Lawyers Association argues that
recent studies refute the findings of adult business correlations with
secondary effects sufficient to justify such an ordinance, Brief for First
Amendment Lawyers Association as Amicus Curiae 21–23, the issue is
one I do not reach.

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
455 Cite as: 535 U. S. 425 (2002)
Souter, J., dissenting
While spoken of as content neutral, these regulations are not
uniformly distinct from the content-based regulations calling
for scrutiny that is strict, and zoning of businesses based on
their sales of expressive adult material receives mid-level
scrutiny, even though it raises a risk of content-based restric-
tion. It is worth being clear, then, on how close to a content
basis adult business zoning can get, and why the application
of a middle-tier standard to zoning regulation of adult book-
stores calls for particular care.
Because content-based regulation applies to expression by
very reason of what is said, it carries a high risk that expres-
sive limits are imposed for the sake of suppressing a message
that is disagreeable to listeners or readers, or the govern-
ment. See Consolidated Edison Co. of N. Y. v. Public Serv.
Comm’n of N. Y., 447 U. S. 530, 536 (1980) (“[W]hen regula-
tion is based on the content of speech, governmental action
must be scrutinized more carefully to ensure that communi-
cation has not been prohibited merely because public officials
disapprove the speaker’s views” (internal quotation marks
omitted)). A restriction based on content survives only on
a showing of necessity to serve a legitimate and compelling
governmental interest, combined with least restrictive nar-
row tailoring to serve it, see United States v. Playboy Enter-
tainment Group, Inc., 529 U. S. 803, 813 (2000); since merely
protecting listeners from offense at the message is not a le-
gitimate interest of the government, see Cohen v. Califor-
nia, 403 U. S. 15, 24–25 (1971), strict scrutiny leaves few
survivors.
The comparatively softer intermediate scrutiny is re-
served for regulations justified by something other than con-
tent of the message, such as a straightforward restriction
going only to the time, place, or manner of speech or other
expression. It is easy to see why review of such a regula-
tion may be relatively relaxed. No one has to disagree with
any message to find something wrong with a loudspeaker at
three in the morning, see Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S. 77

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
456 LOS ANGELES v. ALAMEDA BOOKS, INC.
Souter, J., dissenting
(1949); the sentiment may not provoke, but being blasted out
of a sound sleep does. In such a case, we ask simply
whether the regulation is “narrowly tailored to serve a sig-
nificant governmental interest, and . . . leave[s] open ample
alternative channels for communication of the information.”
Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence, 468 U. S.
288, 293 (1984). A middle-tier standard is also applied to
limits on expression through action that is otherwise subject
to regulation for nonexpressive purposes, the best known ex-
ample being the prohibition on destroying draft cards as an
act of protest, United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367 (1968);
here a regulation passes muster “if it furthers an important
or substantial governmental interest . . . unrelated to the
suppression of free expression” by a restriction “no greater
than is essential to the furtherance of that interest,” id., at
377. As mentioned already, yet another middle-tier variety
is zoning restriction as a means of responding to the “sec-
ondary effects” of adult businesses, principally crime and
declining property values in the neighborhood. Renton v.
Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 U. S. 41, 49 (1986).2
Although this type of land-use restriction has even been
called a variety of time, place, or manner regulation, id., at
46, equating a secondary-effects zoning regulation with a
mere regulation of time, place, or manner jumps over an
important difference between them. A restriction on loud-
speakers has no obvious relationship to the substance of
2 Limiting such effects qualifies as a substantial governmental interest,
and an ordinance has been said to survive if it is shown to serve such
ends without unreasonably limiting alternatives. Renton, 475 U. S., at 50.
Because Renton called its secondary-effects ordinance a mere time, place,
or manner restriction and thereby glossed over the role of content in
secondary-effects zoning, see infra this page and 457, I believe the soft
focus of its statement of the middle-tier test should be rejected in favor
of the United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367 (1968), formulation quoted
above. O’Brien is a closer relative of secondary-effects zoning than mere
time, place, or manner regulations, as the Court has implicitly recognized.
Erie v. Pap’s A. M., 529 U. S. 277, 289 (2000) (plurality opinion).

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
457 Cite as: 535 U. S. 425 (2002)
Souter, J., dissenting
what is broadcast, while a zoning regulation of businesses in
adult expression just as obviously does. And while it may
be true that an adult business is burdened only because of its
secondary effects, it is clearly burdened only if its expressive
products have adult content. Thus, the Court has recog-
nized that this kind of regulation, though called content neu-
tral, occupies a kind of limbo between full-blown, content-
based restrictions and regulations that apply without any
reference to the substance of what is said. Id., at 47.
It would in fact make sense to give this kind of zoning
regulation a First Amendment label of its own, and if we
called it content correlated, we would not only describe it for
what it is, but keep alert to a risk of content-based regulation
that it poses. The risk lies in the fact that when a law ap-
plies selectively only to speech of particular content, the
more precisely the content is identified, the greater is the
opportunity for government censorship. Adult speech re-
fers not merely to sexually explicit content, but to speech
reflecting a favorable view of being explicit about sex and a
favorable view of the practices it depicts; a restriction on
adult content is thus also a restriction turning on a particular
viewpoint, of which the government may disapprove.
This risk of viewpoint discrimination is subject to a rela-
tively simple safeguard, however. If combating secondary
effects of property devaluation and crime is truly the reason
for the regulation, it is possible to show by empirical evi-
dence that the effects exist, that they are caused by the ex-
pressive activity subject to the zoning, and that the zoning
can be expected either to ameliorate them or to enhance the
capacity of the government to combat them (say, by con-
centrating them in one area), without suppressing the ex-
pressive activity itself. This capacity of zoning regulation
to address the practical problems without eliminating the
speech is, after all, the only possible excuse for speaking
of secondary-effects zoning as akin to time, place, or man-
ner regulations.

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
458 LOS ANGELES v. ALAMEDA BOOKS, INC.
Souter, J., dissenting
In examining claims that there are causal relationships
between adult businesses and an increase in secondary ef-
fects (distinct from disagreement), and between zoning and
the mitigation of the effects, stress needs to be placed on
the empirical character of the demonstration available. See
Metromedia, Inc. v. San Diego, 453 U. S. 490, 510 (1981)
(“[J]udgments . . . defying objective evaluation . . . must
be carefully scrutinized to determine if they are only a
public rationalization of an impermissible purpose”); Young,
427 U. S., at 84 (Powell, J., concurring) (“[C]ourts must be
alert . . . to the possibility of using the power to zone as a
pretext for suppressing expression”). The weaker the dem-
onstration of facts distinct from disapproval of the “adult”
viewpoint, the greater the likelihood that nothing more than
condemnation of the viewpoint drives the regulation.3
Equal stress should be placed on the point that requiring
empirical justification of claims about property value or
crime is not demanding anything Herculean. Increased
crime, like prostitution and muggings, and declining prop-
erty values in areas surrounding adult businesses, are all
readily observable, often to the untrained eye and certainly
to the police officer and urban planner. These harms can be
shown by police reports, crime statistics, and studies of mar-
3 Regulation of commercial speech, which is like secondary-effects zon-
ing in being subject to an intermediate level of First Amendment scrutiny,
see Central Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Public Serv. Comm’n of N. Y.,
447 U. S. 557, 569 (1980), provides an instructive parallel in the cases en-
forcing an evidentiary requirement to ensure that an asserted rationale
does not cloak an illegitimate governmental motive. See, e. g., Rubin v.
Coors Brewing Co., 514 U. S. 476, 487 (1995); Edenfield v. Fane, 507 U. S.
761 (1993). The government’s “burden is not satisfied by mere specula-
tion or conjecture,” but only by “demonstrat[ing] that the harms [the gov-
ernment] recites are real and that its restriction will in fact alleviate them
to a material degree.” Id., at 770–771. For unless this “critical” require-
ment is met, Rubin, supra, at 487, “a State could with ease restrict com-
mercial speech in the service of other objectives that could not themselves
justify a burden on commercial expression,” Edenfield, supra, at 771.

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
459 Cite as: 535 U. S. 425 (2002)
Souter, J., dissenting
ket value, all of which are within a municipality’s capacity or
available from the distilled experiences of comparable com-
munities. See, e. g., Renton, supra, at 51; Young, supra, at
55.
And precisely because this sort of evidence is readily avail-
able, reviewing courts need to be wary when the government
appeals, not to evidence, but to an uncritical common sense
in an effort to justify such a zoning restriction. It is not
that common sense is always illegitimate in First Amend-
ment demonstration. The need for independent proof varies
with the point that has to be established, and zoning can be
supported by common experience when there is no reason to
question it. We have appealed to common sense in analo-
gous cases, even if we have disagreed about how far it took
us. See Erie v. Pap’s A. M., 529 U. S. 277, 300–301 (2000)
(plurality opinion); id., at 313, and n. 2 (Souter, J., concur-
ring in part and dissenting in part). But we must be careful
about substituting common assumptions for evidence, when
the evidence is as readily available as public statistics and
municipal property valuations, lest we find out when the evi-
dence is gathered that the assumptions are highly debatable.
The record in this very case makes the point. It has become
a commonplace, based on our own cases, that concentrating
adult establishments drives down the value of neighboring
property used for other purposes. See Renton, 475 U. S., at
51; Young, supra, at 55. In fact, however, the city found
that general assumption unjustified by its 1977 study. App.
39, 45.
The lesson is that the lesser scrutiny applied to content-
correlated zoning restrictions is no excuse for a govern-
ment’s failure to provide a factual demonstration for claims it
makes about secondary effects; on the contrary, this is what
demands the demonstration. See, e. g., Schad v. Mount
Ephraim, 452 U. S. 61, 72–74 (1981). In this case, however,
the government has not shown that bookstores containing
viewing booths, isolated from other adult establishments, in-

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
460 LOS ANGELES v. ALAMEDA BOOKS, INC.
Souter, J., dissenting
crease crime or produce other negative secondary effects in
surrounding neighborhoods, and we are thus left without
substantial justification for viewing the city’s First Amend-
ment restriction as content correlated but not simply content
based. By the same token, the city has failed to show any
causal relationship between the breakup policy and elimi-
nation or regulation of secondary effects.
II
Our cases on the subject have referred to studies, under-
taken with varying degrees of formality, showing the geo-
graphical correlations between the presence or concentration
of adult business establishments and enhanced crime rates
or depressed property values. See, e. g., Renton, supra, at
50–51; Young, 427 U. S., at 55. Although we have held that
intermediate scrutiny of secondary-effects legislation does
not demand a fresh evidentiary study of its factual basis if
the published results of investigations elsewhere are “rea-
sonably” thought to be applicable in a different municipal
setting, Renton, supra, at 51–52, the city here took responsi-
bility to make its own enquiry, App. 35–162. As already
mentioned, the study was inconclusive as to any correlation
between adult business and lower property values, id., at 45,
and it reported no association between higher crime rates
and any isolated adult establishments. But it did find a geo-
graphical correlation of higher concentrations of adult estab-
lishments with higher crime rates, id., at 43, and with this
study in hand, Los Angeles enacted its 1978 ordinance re-
quiring dispersion of adult stores and theaters. This origi-
nal position of the ordinance is not challenged today, and I
will assume its justification on the theory accepted in Young,
that eliminating concentrations of adult establishments will
spread out the documented secondary effects and render
them more manageable that way.
The application of the 1983 amendment now before us is,
however, a different matter. My concern is not with the

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
461 Cite as: 535 U. S. 425 (2002)
Souter, J., dissenting
assumption behind the amendment itself, that a conglomera-
tion of adult businesses under one roof, as in a minimall or
adult department store, will produce undesirable secondary
effects comparable to what a cluster of separate adult estab-
lishments brings about, ante, at 436. That may or may not
be so. The assumption that is clearly unsupported, how-
ever, goes to the city’s supposed interest in applying the
amendment to the book and video stores in question, and in
applying it to break them up. The city, of course, claims
no interest in the proliferation of adult establishments, the
ostensible consequence of splitting the sales and viewing ac-
tivities so as to produce two stores where once there was
one. Nor does the city assert any interest in limiting the
sale of adult expressive material as such, or reducing the
number of adult video booths in the city, for that would be
clear content-based regulation, and the city was careful in
its 1977 report to disclaim any such intent. App. 54.4
4 Finally, the city does not assert an interest in curbing any secondary
effects within the combined bookstore-arcades. In Hart Book Stores, Inc.
v. Edmisten, 612 F. 2d 821 (1979), the Fourth Circuit upheld a similar
ban in North Carolina, relying in part on a county health department
report on the results of an inspection of several of the combined adult
bookstore-video arcades in Wake County, North Carolina. Id., at 828–829,
n. 9. The inspection revealed unsanitary conditions and evidence of sala-
cious activities taking place within the video cubicles. Ibid. The city
introduces this case to defend its breakup policy although it is not clear
from the opinion how separating these video arcades from the adult
bookstores would deter the activities that took place within them. In
any event, while Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 U. S. 41 (1986),
allowed a city to rely on the experiences and studies of other cities, it
did not dispense with the requirement that “whatever evidence the city
relies upon [be] reasonably believed to be relevant to the problem that
the city addresses,” id., at 51–52, and the evidence relied upon by the
Fourth Circuit is certainly not necessarily relevant to the Los Angeles
ordinance. Since November 1977, five years before the enactment of the
ordinance at issue, Los Angeles has regulated adult video booths, prohibit-
ing doors, setting minimum levels of lighting, and requiring that their
interiors be fully visible from the entrance to the premises. Los Angeles
Municipal Code §§ 103.101(i), ( j). Thus, it seems less likely that the un-

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
462 LOS ANGELES v. ALAMEDA BOOKS, INC.
Souter, J., dissenting
Rather, the city apparently assumes that a bookstore sell-
ing videos and providing viewing booths produces secondary
effects of crime, and more crime than would result from hav-
ing a single store without booths in one part of town and a
video arcade in another.5 But the city neither says this in
so many words nor proffers any evidence to support even the
simple proposition that an otherwise lawfully located adult
bookstore combined with video booths will produce any
criminal effects. The Los Angeles study treats such com-
bined stores as one, see id., at 81–82, and draws no general
conclusion that individual stores spread apart from other
adult establishments (as under the basic Los Angeles ordi-
nance) are associated with any degree of criminal activity
above the general norm; nor has the city called the Court’s
attention to any other empirical study, or even anecdotal
police evidence, that supports the city’s assumption. In fact,
if the Los Angeles study sheds any light whatever on the
city’s position, it is the light of skepticism, for we may fairly
suspect that the study said nothing about the secondary
effects of freestanding stores because no effects were ob-
served. The reasonable supposition, then, is that splitting
some of them up will have no consequence for secondary
effects whatever.6
sanitary conditions identified in Hart Book Stores would exist in video
arcades in Los Angeles, and the city has suggested no evidence that they
do. For that reason, Hart Book Stores gives no indication of a substantial
governmental interest that the ban on multiuse adult establishments
would further.
5 The plurality indulges the city’s assumption but goes no further to
justify it than stating what is obvious from what the city’s study says
about concentrations of adult establishments (but not isolated ones): the
presence of several adult businesses in one neighborhood draws “a greater
concentration of adult consumers to the neighborhood, [which] either at-
tracts or generates criminal activity.” Ante, at 436.
6 In Renton, the Court approved a zoning ordinance “aimed at prevent-
ing the secondary effects caused by the presence of even one such theater

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
463 Cite as: 535 U. S. 425 (2002)
Souter, J., dissenting
The inescapable point is that the city does not even claim
that the 1977 study provides any support for its assumption.
We have previously accepted studies, like the city’s own
study here, as showing a causal connection between concen-
trations of adult business and identified secondary effects.7
Since that is an acceptable basis for requiring adult busi-
nesses to disperse when they are housed in separate prem-
ises, there is certainly a relevant argument to be made that
restricting their concentration at one spacious address
should have some effect on sales and traffic, and effects in the
neighborhood. But even if that argument may justify a ban
on adult “minimalls,” ante, at 436, it provides no support for
what the city proposes to do here. The bookstores involved
here are not concentrations of traditionally separate adult
businesses that have been studied and shown to have an
association with secondary effects, and they exemplify no
new form of concentration like a mall under one roof. They
are combinations of selling and viewing activities that have
commonly been combined, and the plurality itself recognizes,
ante, at 438, that no study conducted by the city has reported
that this type of traditional business, any more than any
other adult business, has a correlation with secondary effects
in a given neighborhood.” 475 U. S., at 50. The city, however, does not
appeal to that decision to show that combined bookstore-arcades isolated
from other adult establishments, like the theaters in Renton, give rise to
negative secondary effects, perhaps recognizing that such a finding would
only call into doubt the sensibility of the city’s decision to proliferate
such businesses. See ante, at 438. Although the question may be open
whether a city can rely on the experiences of other cities when they con-
tradict its own studies, that question is not implicated here, as Los
Angeles relies exclusively on its own study, which is tellingly silent on
the question whether isolated adult establishments have any bearing on
criminal activity.
7 As already noted, n. 1, supra, amicus First Amendment Lawyers
Association argues that more recent studies show no such thing, but
this case involves no such challenge to the previously accepted causal
connection.

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
464 LOS ANGELES v. ALAMEDA BOOKS, INC.
Souter, J., dissenting
in the absence of concentration with other adult establish-
ments in the neighborhood. And even if splitting viewing
booths from the bookstores that continue to sell videos were
to turn some customers away (or send them in search of
video arcades in other neighborhoods), it is nothing but spec-
ulation to think that marginally lower traffic to one store
would have any measurable effect on the neighborhood, let
alone an effect on associated crime that has never been
shown to exist in the first place.8
Nor is the plurality’s position bolstered, as it seems to
think, ante, at 439, by relying on the statement in Renton
that courts should allow cities a “ ‘reasonable opportunity to
experiment with solutions to admittedly serious problems,’ ”
475 U. S., at 52. The plurality overlooks a key distinction
between the zoning regulations at issue in Renton and
8 Justice Kennedy would indulge the city in this speculation, so long
as it could show that the ordinance will “leav[e] the quantity and accessi-
bility of speech substantially intact.” Ante, at 449 (opinion concurring
in judgment). But the suggestion that the speculated consequences may
justify content-correlated regulation if speech is only slightly burdened
turns intermediate scrutiny on its head. Although the goal of inter-
mediate scrutiny is to filter out laws that unduly burden speech, this is
achieved by examining the asserted governmental interest, not the burden
on speech, which must simply be no greater than necessary to further that
interest. Erie, 529 U. S., at 301; see also n. 2, supra. Nor has Justice
Kennedy even shown that this ordinance leaves speech “substantially
intact.” He posits an example in which two adult stores draw 100 custom-
ers, and each business operating separately draws 49. Ante, at 452. It
does not follow, however, that a combined bookstore-arcade that draws
100 customers, when split, will yield a bookstore and arcade that together
draw nearly that many customers. Given the now double outlays re-
quired to operate the businesses at different locations, see infra, at 466,
the far more likely outcome is that the stand-alone video store will go out
of business. (Of course, the bookstore owner could, consistently with the
ordinance, continue to operate video booths at no charge, but if this were
always commercially feasible then the city would face the separate prob-
lem that under no theory could a rule simply requiring that video booths
be operated for free be said to reduce secondary effects.)

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
465 Cite as: 535 U. S. 425 (2002)
Souter, J., dissenting
Young (and in Los Angeles as of 1978), and this new Los
Angeles breakup requirement. In those two cases, the mu-
nicipalities’ substantial interest for purposes of intermediate
scrutiny was an interest in choosing between two strategies
to deal with crime or property value, each strategy tied to
the businesses’ location, which had been shown to have a
causal connection with the secondary effects: the municipal-
ity could either concentrate businesses for a concentrated
regulatory strategy, or disperse them in order to spread out
its regulatory efforts. The limitations on location required
no further support than the factual basis tying location to
secondary effects; the zoning approved in those two cases
had no effect on the way the owners of the stores carried
on their adult businesses beyond controlling location, and no
heavier burden than the location limit was approved by this
Court.
The Los Angeles ordinance, however, does impose a heav-
ier burden, and one lacking any demonstrable connection to
the interest in crime control. The city no longer accepts
businesses as their owners choose to conduct them within
their own four walls, but bars a video arcade in a bookstore,
a combination shown by the record to be commercially natu-
ral, if not universal. App. 47–51, 229–230, 242. Whereas
Young and Renton gave cities the choice between two strate-
gies when each was causally related to the city’s interest, the
plurality today gives Los Angeles a right to “experiment”
with a First Amendment restriction in response to a problem
of increased crime that the city has never even shown to be
associated with combined bookstore-arcades standing alone.
But the government’s freedom of experimentation cannot
displace its burden under the intermediate scrutiny standard
to show that the restriction on speech is no greater than
essential to realizing an important objective, in this case
policing crime. Since we cannot make even a best guess
that the city’s breakup policy will have any effect on crime

535US2 Unit: $U43 [10-01-03 18:26:45] PAGES PGT: OPIN
466 LOS ANGELES v. ALAMEDA BOOKS, INC.
Souter, J., dissenting
or law enforcement, we are a very far cry from any assurance
against covert content-based regulation.9
And concern with content-based regulation targeting a
viewpoint is right to the point here, as witness a fact that
involves no guesswork. If we take the city’s breakup policy
at its face, enforcing it will mean that in every case two
establishments will operate instead of the traditional one.
Since the city presumably does not wish merely to multiply
adult establishments, it makes sense to ask what offsetting
gain the city may obtain from its new breakup policy. The
answer may lie in the fact that two establishments in place
of one will entail two business overheads in place of one: two
monthly rents, two electricity bills, two payrolls. Every
month business will be more expensive than it used to be,
perhaps even twice as much. That sounds like a good strat-
egy for driving out expressive adult businesses. It sounds,
in other words, like a policy of content-based regulation.
I respectfully dissent.
9 The plurality’s assumption that the city’s “motive” in applying
secondary-effects zoning can be entirely compartmentalized from the prof-
fer of evidence required to justify the zoning scheme, ante, at 440–441, is
indulgent to an unrealistic degree, as the record in this case shows. When
the original dispersion ordinance was enacted in 1978, the city’s study
showing a correlation between concentrations of adult business and higher
crime rates showed that the dispersal of adult businesses was causally
related to the city’s law enforcement interest, and that in turn was a fair
indication that the city’s concern was with the secondary effect of higher
crime rates. When, however, the city takes the further step of breaking
up businesses with no showing that a traditionally combined business has
any association with a higher crime rate that could be affected by the
breakup, there is no indication that the breakup policy addresses a second-
ary effect, but there is reason to doubt that secondary effects are the city’s
concern. The plurality seems to ask us to shut our eyes to the city’s
failings by emphasizing that this case is merely at the stage of summary
judgment, ante, at 439, but ignores the fact that at this summary judgment
stage the city has made it plain that it relies on no evidence beyond the
1977 study, which provides no support for the city’s action.