City of Dallas v. Stanglin, 87-1848

• Citation: 104 L.Ed.2d 18,109 S.Ct. 1591,490 U.S. 19
• Decision Date: 03 April 1989
• Docket Number: No. 87-1848,87-1848
• Parties: CITY OF DALLAS, et al., Petitioners v. Charles M. STANGLIN, Individually, and d/b/a Twilight Skating Rink
• Court: United States Supreme Court

490 U.S. 19

109 S.Ct. 1591

104 L.Ed.2d 18

CITY OF DALLAS, et al., Petitioners

v Charles M. STANGLIN, Individually, and d/b/a Twilight Skating Rink.

No. 87-1848.

Argued March 1, 1989.

Decided April 3, 1989.

Syllabus

For the express purpose of providing a place where teenagers can socialize with each other but not be subject to the potentially detrimental influences of older teenagers and adults, a Dallas ordinance authorizes the licensing of "Class E" dance halls, restricting admission thereto to persons between the ages of 14 and 18 and limiting their hours of operation. Respondent, whose roller-skating rink and Class E dance hall share a divided floorspace, filed suit in state court to enjoin the ordinance's age and hour restrictions, contending, inter alia, that they violated the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The trial court upheld the ordinance, but the Texas Court of Appeals struck down the ordinance's age restriction, holding that it violated the First Amendment associational rights of minors.

Held:

1. The ordinance does not infringe on the First Amendment right of association. Respondent's patrons, who may number as many as 1,000 per night, are not engaged in a form of "intimate association." Nor do the opportunities of adults and minors to dance with one another, which might be described as "associational" in common parlance, involve the sort of "expressive association" that the First Amendment has been held to protect. The teenagers who congregate are not members of any organized association, and most are strangers to one another. The dance hall admits all who pay the admission fee, and there is no suggestion that the patrons take positions on public questions or perform other similar activities. Moreover, the Constitution does not recognize a generalized right of "social association" that includes chance encounters in dance halls. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 483, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 1681, 14 L.Ed.2d 510, distinguished. Pp. 23-25.

2. The ordinance does not violate the Equal Prot ction Clause because there is a rational relationship between the age restriction for Class E dance halls and the city's interest in promoting the welfare of teenagers. Respondent's claims—that the ordinance does not meet the city's objectives because adults and teenagers can still associate with one another in places such as his skating rink and that there are other, less intrusive, alternatives to achieve the objectives—misapprehend the nature of rational-basis scrutiny, the most relaxed and tolerant form of judicial scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause. Under this standard, a classification that has some reasonable basis does not offend the Constitution because it is imperfect. Here, the city could reasonably conclude that teenagers might be more susceptible to corrupting influences if permitted to frequent dance halls with older persons or that limiting dance-hall contacts between adults and teenagers would make less likely illicit or undesirable juvenile involvement with alcohol, illegal drugs, or promiscuous sex. While the city permits teenagers and adults to rollerskate together, skating involves less physical contact than dancing, a differentiation that need not be striking to survive rational-basis scrutiny. Pp. 25-28.

744 S.W.2d 165 (Tex.App.1987), reversed and remanded.

REHNQUIST, C.J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BRENNAN, WHITE, MARSHALL, O'CONNOR, SCALIA, and KENNEDY, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which BLACKMUN, J., joined, post, p. 28.

Craig Lee Hopkins, Dallas, Tex., for petitioners.

Daniel J. Sheehan, Jr., Dallas, Tex., for respondent.

Chief Justice REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.

Petitioner city of Dallas adopted an ordinance restricting admission to certain dance halls to persons between the ages of 14 and 18. Respondent, the owner of one of these "teenage" dance halls, sued to contest the constitutional validity of the ordinance. The Texas Court of Appeals held that the ordinance violated the First Amendment right of persons between the ages of 14 and 18 to associate with persons out- side that age group. We now reverse, holding that the First Amendment secures no such right.

In 1985, in response to requests for dance halls open only to teenagers, the city of Dallas authorized the licensing of "Class E" dance halls.¹ The purpose of the ordinance was to provide a place where teenagers could socialize with each other, but not be subject to the potentially detrimental influences of older teenagers and young adults. The provision of the ordinance at issue here, Dallas City Code § 14-8.1 (1985), restricts the ages of admission to Class E dance halls to persons between the ages of 14 and 18.² This provision, as enacted, restricted admission to those between 14 and 17, but it was subsequently amended to include 18-year olds. Parents, guardians, law enforcement, and dance-hall personnel are excepted from the ordinance's age restriction. The ordinance also limits the hours of operation of Class E dance halls to between 1 p.m. and midnight daily when school is not in session. § 14-5(d)(2).

Respondent operates the Twilight Skating Rink in Dallas and obtained a license for a Class E dance hall. He divided the floor of his roller-skating rink into two sections with moveable plastic cones or pylons. On one side of the pylons, persons between the ages of 14 and 18 dance, while on the other side, persons of all ages skate to the same music—usually soul and "funk" music played by a disc jockey. No age or hour restrictions are applicable to the skating rink. Respondent does not serve alcohol on the premises, and security personnel are present. The Twilight does not have a selective admissions policy. It charges between $3.50 and $5 per person for admission to the dance hall and between $2.50 and $5 per person for admission to the skating rink. Most of the patrons are strangers to each other, and the establishment serves as many as 1,000 customers per night.

Respondent sued in the District Court of Dallas County to enjoin enforcement of the age and hour restrictions of the ordinance. He contended that the ordinance violated substantive due process and equal protection under the United States and Texas Constitutions, and that it unconstitutionally infringed the rights of persons between the ages of 14 and 17 (now 18) to associate with persons outside that age bracket.³ The trial court upheld the ordinance, finding that it was ra- tionally related to the city's legitimate interest in ensuring the safety and welfare of children.

The Texas Court of Appeals upheld the ordinance's time restriction, but it struck down the age restriction. 744 S.W.2d 165 (1987). The Court of Appeals held that the age restriction violated the First Amendment associational rights of minors. To support a restriction on the fundamental right of "social association," the court said that "the legislative body must show a compelling interest," and the regulation "must be accomplished by the least restrictive means." Id., at 168. The court recognized the city's interest in "protect[ing] minors from detrimental, corrupting influences," ibid., but held that the "City's stated purposes . . . may be achieved in ways that are less intrusive on minors' freedom to associate," id., at 169. The Court of Appeals stated that "[a] child's right of association may not be abridged simply on the premise that he 'might' associate with those who would persuade him into bad habits," and that "neither the activity of dancing per se, nor association of children aged fourteen through eighteen with persons of other ages in the context of dancing renders such children peculiarly vulnerable to the evils that defendant City seeks to prevent." Ibid. We granted certiorari, 488 U.S. 815, 109 S.Ct. 51, 102 L.Ed.2d 30 (1988), and now reverse.

The dispositive question n this case is the level of judicial "scrutiny" to be applied to the city's ordinance. Unless laws "create suspect classifications or impinge upon constitutionally protected rights," San Antonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 40, 93 S.Ct. 1278, 1300, 36 L.Ed.2d 16 (1973), it need only be shown that they bear "some rational relationship to a legitimate state purpose" id., at 44, 93 S.Ct., at 1302. Respondent does not contend that dance-hall patrons are a "suspect classification," but he does urge that the ordinance in question interferes with associational rights of such patrons guaranteed by the First Amendment.

While the First Amendment does not in terms protect a "right of association," our cases have recognized that it em- braces such a right in certain circumstances. In Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609, 104 S.Ct. 3244, 82 L.Ed.2d 462 (1984), we noted two different sorts of "freedom of association" that are protected by the United States Constitution:

"Our decisions have referred to constitutionally protected 'freedom of association' in two distinct senses. In one line of decisions, the Court has concluded that choices to enter into and maintain certain intimate human relationships must be secured against undue intrusion by the State because of the role of such relationships in safeguarding the individual freedom that is central to our constitutional scheme. In this respect, freedom of association receives protection as a fundamental element of personal liberty. In another set of decisions, the Court has recognized a right to associate for the purpose of engaging in those activities protected by the First Amendment—speech, assembly, petition for the redress of grievances, and the exercise of religion." Id., at 617-618, 104 S.Ct., at 3249.

It is clear beyond cavil that dance-hall patrons, who may number 1,000 on any given night, are not engaged in the sort of "intimate human relationships" referred to in Roberts. The Texas Court of...