Advantage Media, L.L.C. v. City of Hopkins, No. CIV.04-04959(MJD/JGL).
| Decision Date | 29 July 2005 |
| Docket Number | No. CIV.04-04959(MJD/JGL). |
| Citation | 379 F.Supp.2d 1030 |
| Parties | ADVANTAGE MEDIA, L.L.C., and Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Minnesota, Plaintiffs, v. CITY OF HOPKINS, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Minnesota |
E. Adam Webb, Webb & Porter, L.L.C., and Stephen W. Cooper, Cooper Law Office, Minneapolis, MN, for Plaintiffs.
Paul Donald Reuvers, Iverson Reuvers, L.L.C., Minneapolis, MN, for Defendant.
Plaintiffs Advantage Media, L.L.C., ("Advantage") and Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Minnesota claim that a sign ordinance in the City of Hopkins ("the City") violates the First Amendment, both facially and as applied to them. The instant matter before the Court is Plaintiffs' Motion for Preliminary Injunction [Document No. 10] to enjoin enforcement of the ordinance, which was heard on July 27, 2005. As more fully detailed below, Plaintiffs have demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits, and Plaintiffs' Motion for Preliminary Injunction shall be granted.
The facts of this case are largely undisputed. Plaintiff Advantage is a Minnesota company that develops and operates advertising signs used by businesses, churches, organizations, and individuals to communicate both commercial and noncommercial messages. Advantage claims that the City has a shortage of advertising signs, so its representatives have expended substantial time and effort investigating potential sign locations. All of the proposed locations at issue are in commercial areas adjacent to major roadways.
The City's Sign Ordinance, HOPKINS ZONING CODE § 570 (the "Ordinance"), regulates all signs within the City, stating, among other things:
Permit Required. No or [sic] sign shall be erected, altered, reconstructed, maintained or moved in the city without first securing a permit therefore from the city. Application for a permit shall be in writing addressed to the zoning administrator and shall contain at least the following information:
a) the exact location of proposed sign including the name, address and legal description of premises;
b) the name and address of owner of sign;
c) the size and dimensions of sign;
d) the cost of sign; and
e) the purpose and intended duration.
HOPKINS ZONING CODE § 570.03 (emphasis in original).
The Ordinance states that its purpose is to "protect the public health safety, morals, comfort, convenience and general welfare" and to "limit congestion in the public right-of-way." HOPKINS CODE § 515.03 (Intent and Purpose). Section 570.54 of the Ordinance, which concerns the business park district, was enacted "to establish and maintain high quality site planning, architecture, signage and landscape design to create an attractive and unified development character." HOPKINS ORDINANCE NO. 97-795; HOPKINS ZONING CODE § 541.01; see id. at § 570.54.
On or about November 23, 2004, Advantage submitted four sign application packages to the authorized City official. That City official refused to accept the applications for processing, despite Advantage's repeated requests. Because of the City's refusal to process the applications, Advantage requested a written statement regarding the processing of the applications. Again, the City official refused to accept the applications and denied Advantage's request for a written response. Despite the City's denial, Advantage left the completed application packages with the City official for processing.
On December 4, 2004, the City mailed Advantage the application packages, unprocessed. The City included a note simply stating that the application packages were being returned. On January 21, 2005, the City Planner sent Advantage a letter stating that "[t]hese applications were denied because they failed to meet the size and location requirements set forth in the City's sign ordinance." The proposed signs were 600 to 800 square feet, while the largest sign permitted in the business district is 60 to 80 square feet. Advantage has not posted the requested signs.
Plaintiff Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Minnesota ("HCCM") is a 200-member nonprofit community and economic development organization that provides training, technical assistance, workforce development, and other resources to Latino individuals and entrepreneurs. HCCM's members are primarily small businesses that benefit from signs such as those provided by Advantage, because such signs are often the most targeted and cost efficient means for HCCM's members to convey commercial and noncommercial messages. The topics of those messages include products, services, ideas, candidates, issues, and events, as well as political, ideological, and religious messages. HCCM claims that alternative avenues of communication, such as newspapers and television, are often cost-prohibitive or do not reach its targeted audience. HCCM seeks to post signs on their and others' property, but because of the City's enforcement of the Ordinance, HCCM claims that its members have refrained from erecting such signs in fear of civil and criminal penalties, including fines, forfeiture of property, and possible imprisonment.
Plaintiffs seek a preliminary injunction to enjoin the City from enforcing the Ordinance in its entirety.
To prevail on a motion for preliminary injunction, a court must consider (1) the moving party's probability of success on the merits; (2) the threat of irreparable harm to the moving party; (3) the balance between this harm and the injury that granting the injunction will inflict on other interested parties; and (4) the public interest in the issuance of the injunction. Vonage Holdings Corp. v. Minn. Pub. Utils. Comm'n, 290 F.Supp.2d 993, 996 (D.Minn.2003) (citing Dataphase Sys., Inc. v. C L Sys., Inc., 640 F.2d 109, 114 (8th Cir.1981) (en banc)). No single factor is determinative; rather, the probability of success must be examined in the context of the relative injuries to the parties and to the public. Dataphase, 640 F.2d at 113; see West Publ'g Co. v. Mead Data Cent., Inc., 799 F.2d 1219, 1222 (8th Cir.1986). Although no one factor is determinative, likelihood of success on the merits is generally the touchstone inquiry. Dataphase, 640 F.2d at 113. The party requesting injunctive relief bears the "complete burden" of proving all of the factors. Gelco Corp. v. Coniston Partners, 811 F.2d 414, 418 (8th Cir.1987).
Plaintiffs have clearly satisfied the second, third, and fourth elements of the preliminary injunction analysis. For each day that passes while Plaintiffs — or any citizen — are deprived of the constitutional right to post and read signs, such a delay establishes the threat of irreparable injury. Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 373, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 49 L.Ed.2d 547 (1976) () (plurality opinion); see Riley v. Nat'l Fed'n of the Blind, 487 U.S. 781, 802, 108 S.Ct. 2667, 101 L.Ed.2d 669 (1988) (); Mga Susu, Inc. v. County of Benton, 853 F.Supp. 1147, 1154 (D.Minn.1994) ().
With regard to the third factor, the balance of harms favors granting an injunction where the threat to a plaintiff's First Amendment rights outweighs a city's impaired ability to exercise its police powers. See Bukaka, Inc. v. County of Benton, 852 F.Supp. 807, 811 (D.Minn.1993) (). On the record before this Court, the balance of harms favors Plaintiffs' expression of their First Amendment rights.
The final factor, the public interest, is also present here, because "the public interest favors preventing enforcement of an ordinance that unconstitutionally restrains protected expression." Mga Susu, 853 F.Supp. at 1154.
Accordingly, to obtain a preliminary injunction, the success of Plaintiffs' motion hinges upon whether Plaintiffs bear their burden of demonstrating a substantial probability of success on the merits. The following sections analyze this factor.
As an initial matter, Defendant challenges Plaintiffs' standing to raise as-applied and facial challenges to the Ordinance. Plaintiff Advantage submitted a sign application, and the City denied that application — initially without a written reason, and later by providing a letter drafted almost 60 days later — stating that the "applications were denied because they failed to meet the size and location requirements set forth in the City's sign ordinance." HCCM claims that its speech has been chilled because although its members would like to display messages in the City, the Ordinance prohibits them from doing so without being subject to the "unbridled discretionary authority of City officials."
To establish standing, a plaintiff must demonstrate (1) that it has suffered an "injury in fact" which is (a) concrete and particularized and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical; (2) a causal connection between the injury and the complained-of conduct and that the injury is "fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant, and not the result of the independent action of some third party not before the court;" (3) and that it is "likely" rather than merely "speculative" that the injury will be "redressed by a favorable decision." Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992).
Advantage clearly has traditional standing because it submitted an application that the City initially refused to process, and later denied. This application and denial unmistakably...
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