Village of Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc, 80-1681

Decision Date03 March 1982
Docket NumberNo. 80-1681,80-1681
Citation71 L.Ed.2d 362,455 U.S. 489,102 S.Ct. 1186
PartiesVILLAGE OF HOFFMAN ESTATES, et al., Appellants, v. FLIPSIDE, HOFFMAN ESTATES, INC
CourtU.S. Supreme Court
Syllabus

An ordinance of appellant village requires a business to obtain a license if it sells any items that are "designed or marketed for use with illegal cannabis or drugs." Guidelines define the items (such as "roach clips," which are used to smoke cannabis, "pipes," and "paraphernalia"), the sale of which is required to be licensed. Appellee, which sold a variety of merchandise in its store, including "roach clips" and specially designed pipes used to smoke marihuana, upon being notified that it was in possible violation of the ordinance, brought suit in Federal District Court, claiming that the ordinance is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad, and requesting injunctive and declaratory relief and damages. The District Court upheld the ordinance and awarded judgment to the village defendants. The Court of Appeals reversed on the ground that the ordinance is unconstitutionally vague on its face.

Held: The ordinance is not facially overbroad or vague but is reasonably clear in its application to appellee. Pp. 494-505.

(a) In a facial challenge to the overbreadth and vagueness of an enactment, a court must first determine whether the enactment reaches a substantial amount of constitutionally protected conduct. If it does not, the overbreadth challenge must fail. The court should then examine the facial vagueness challenge and should uphold such challenge only if the enactment is impermissibly vague in all of its applications. Pp. 494-495.

(b) The ordinance here does not violate appellee's First Amendment rights nor is it overbroad because it inhibits such rights of other parties. The ordinance does not restrict speech as such but simply regulates the commercial marketing of items that the labels reveal may be used for an illicit purpose and thus does not embrace noncommercial speech. With respect to any commercial speech interest implicated, the ordinance's restriction on the manner of marketing does not appreciably limit appellee's communication of information, except to the extent it is directed at commercial activity promoting or encouraging illegal drug use, an activity which, if deemed "speech," is speech proposing an illegal transaction and thus subject to government regulation or ban. It is irrelevant whether the ordinance has an overbroad scope encompassing other persons' commercial speech, since the overbreadth doctrine does not apply to commercial speech. Pp. 495-497. (c) With respect to the facial vagueness challenge, appellee has not shown that the ordinance is impermissibly vague in all of its applications. The ordinance's language "designed . . . for use" is not unconstitutionally vague on its face, since it is clear that such standard encompasses at least an item that is principally used with illegal drugs by virtue of its objective features, i.e., features designed by the manufacturer. Thus, the "designed for use" standard is sufficiently clear to cover at least some of the items that appellee sold, such as "roach clips" and the specially designed pipes. As to the "marketed for use" standard, the guidelines refer to the display of paraphernalia and to the proximity of covered items to otherwise uncovered items, and thus such standard requires scienter on the part of the retailer. Under this test, appellee had ample warning that its marketing activities required a license, and by displaying a certain magazine and certain books dealing with illegal drugs physically close to pipes and colored rolling paper, it was in clear violation of the guidelines, as it was in selling "roach clips." Pp. 499-503.

(d) The ordinance's language is sufficiently clear that the speculative danger of arbitrary enforcement does not render it void for vagueness in a pre-enforcement facial challenge. Pp. 503-504.

639 F.2d 373, reversed and remanded.

Richard N. Williams, Hoffman Estates, Ill., for appellants.

Michael L. Pritzker, Chicago, Ill., for appellee.

Justice MARSHALL delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case presents a pre-enforcement facial challenge to a drug paraphernalia ordinance on the ground that it is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. The ordinance in question requires a business to obtain a license if it sells any items that are "designed or marketed for use with illegal cannabis or drugs." Village of Hoffman Estates Ordinance No. 969-1978. The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that the ordinance is vague on its face. 639 F.2d 373 (1981). We noted probable jurisdiction, 452 U.S. 904, 101 S.Ct. 3028, 69 L.Ed.2d 404 (1981), and now reverse.

I

For more than three years prior to May 1, 1978, appellee The Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc. (Flipside), sold a variety of merchandise, including phonographic records, smoking accessories, novelty devices, and jewelry, in its store located in the village of Hoffman Estates, Ill. (village).1 On February 20, 1978, the village enacted an ordinance regulating drug paraphernalia, to be effective May 1, 1978.2 The ordinance makes it unlawful for any person "to sell any items, effect, paraphernalia, accessory or thing which is designed or marketed for use with illegal cannabis or drugs, as defined by Illinois Revised Statutes, without obtaining a license therefor." The license fee is $150. A business must also file affidavits that the licensee and its employees have not been convicted of a drug-related offense. Moreover, the business must keep a record of each sale of a regulated item, including the name and address of the purchaser, to be open to police inspection. No regulated item may be sold to a minor. A violation is subject to a fine of not less than $10 and not more than $500, and each day that a violation continues gives rise to a separate offense. A series of licensing guidelines prepared by the Village Attorney define "Paper," "Roach Clips," "Pipes," and "Paraphernalia," the sale of which is required to be licensed.3

After an administrative inquiry, the village determined that Flipside and one other store appeared to be in violation of the ordinance. The Village Attorney notified Flipside of the existence of the ordinance, and made a copy of the ordinance and guidelines available to Flipside. Flipside's owner asked for guidance concerning which items were covered by the ordinance; the Village Attorney advised him to remove items in a certain section of the store "for his protection," and he did so. App. 71. The items included, according to Flipside's description, a clamp, chain ornaments, an "alligator" clip, key chains, necklaces, earrings, cigarette holders, glove stretchers, scales, strainers, a pulverizer, squeeze bottles, pipes, water pipes, pins, an herb sifter, mirrors, vials, cigarette rolling papers, and tobacco snuff. On May 30, 1978, instead of applying for a license or seeking clarification via the administrative procedures that the village had established for its licensing ordinances,4 Flipside filed this lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

The complaint alleged, inter alia, that the ordinance is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad, and requested injunctive and declaratory relief and damages. The District Court, after hearing testimony, declined to grant a preliminary injunction. The case was tried without a jury on additional evidence and stipulated testimony. The court issued an opinion upholding the constitutionality of the ordinance, and awarded judgment to the village defendants. 485 F.Supp. 400 (1980).

The Court of Appeals reversed on the ground that the ordinance is unconstitutionally vague on its face. The court reviewed the language of the ordinance and guidelines and found it vague with respect to certain conceivable applications, such as ordinary pipes or "paper clips sold next to Rolling Stone magazine." 639 F.2d, at 382. It also suggested that the "subjective" nature of the "marketing" test creates a danger of arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement against those with alternative lifestyles. Id., at 384. Finally, the court determined that the availability of administrative review or guidelines cannot cure the defect. Thus, it concluded that the ordinance is impermissibly vague on its face.

II

In a facial challenge to the overbreadth and vagueness of a law,5 a court's first task is to determine whether the enactment reaches a substantial amount of constitutionally protected conduct.6 If it does not, then the overbreadth challenge must fail. The court should then examine the facial vagueness challenge and, assuming the enactment implicates no constitutionally protected conduct, should uphold the challenge only if the enactment is impermissibly vague in all of its applications. A plaintiff who engages in some conduct that is clearly proscribed cannot complain of the vagueness of the law as applied to the conduct of others.7 A court should therefore examine the complainant's conduct before analyzing other hypothetical applications of the law.

The Court of Appeals in this case did not explicitly consider whether the ordinance reaches constitutionally protected conduct and is overbroad, nor whether the ordinance is vague in all of its applications. Instead, the court determined that the ordinance is void for vagueness because it is unclear in some of its applications to the conduct of Flipside and of other hypothetical parties. Under a proper analysis, however, the ordinance is not facially invalid.

III

We first examine whether the ordinance infringes Flipside's First Amendment rights or is overbroad because it inhibits the First Amendment rights of other parties. Flipside makes the exorbitant claim that the village has imposed a "prior restraint" on speech because the guidelines treat...

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