Agenda - Planning Commission - 11/05/2009

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Zoning Bulletin July 25, 20091 Volume 31 No. 14 (''7.\ . .~y April ~007, no.ac~ion had been taken by the BSED on either the (.:). nnnal or revised applicatiOns. . . l< & P (along with H.D.'Y.-Greektown, LLC, the prospective purchaser. of K & P's adult cabaret) brought a lawsuit against the city. Among other things, the lawsuit alleged that the city's sign ordinances (the "Ordinanc- ~s"): (1) constituted a facially unconstitutional (in violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution) prior restraint on speech; and (2) were unconstitutional as applied to K & P. K & P maintained that the Ordinances were unconstitutional because they: vested the city with "un- bridled discretion" to grant or deny permits since they did not contain specific grounds for the denial of sign-permit applications; and failed to place any time limits on the city for acting on sign-permit applications. The Ordinances contained separate definitions for various types of signs, and imposed different height requirements on different types of signs, The Ordinances prohibited signs without a permit, but failed to describe any "definitive process which proscribed the route. that entre- preneurs must follow in order to obtain a business sign permit that satis- fied the parameters of the [O]rdinances." K & P filed a motion for sllIlimary judgment, asking the district court . ~ to find that there were no material iSsues of fact in dispute and to decide 1(')' the matter on the law alone in their favor. Specifically, they asked the. district court to: (1) enjoin the city from enforcing the challenged Or- dinances; (2) declare that K & P was legally entitled to erect the signs described in the revised application; and (3) permanently enjoin the city from interfering in any manner with their erection of the signs. The district court issued an order granting in part and denying in part K & P's motion. It held that. the city's sign .Ordinances were .not 'uncon.:. stitution~.l on their face. Accordingly, it declined to permanently enjoin enforcement of those Ordinances. However, the district court also held that the city's failure to act on the app1ic!ltions within a reasonable time rendered the Ordinances unconstitutional as applied to K & P. Thus, the court enjoined the city from preventing K & P's ereCtion of their pro- posed signs. K & P appealed the portions of that ruling that were unfavorable to them. They argued that the Ordinances did, in fact, amount to a facially unconstitutional (in violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Consti- tUtion) prior restraint on speech. DECISION: Affirined. C.)i The United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, held that the city's sign Ordinance,s, and the sign-permit application process derived from them, were facially constitutional. @ 2009 Thomson Reuters 5 ! I :/ I , I ! 57