DALLAS — A federal court has ruled that an ordinance passed by the City of Dallas restricting the nighttime hours of sexually-oriented businesses is reasonable.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the opinion on Thursday, siding with the City of Dallas and overruling a lower court's ruling that had halted the ordinance passed in January 2022.
Dallas City councilmembers had unanimously passed an ordinance which would require sexually-oriented businesses — such as cabarets and adult bookstores — to be closed from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. The same day as that vote, four adult cabarets, one adult bookstore and a nonprofit trade association whose members include sexually-oriented businesses filed a complaint against the city, arguing the ordinance violates their First Amendment right to freedom of expression.
In the ruling issued Thursday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the ordinance is likely constitutional because the City's evidence "reasonably showed a link between [sexually-oriented businesses] late-night operations and an increase in 'noxious side effects,' such as crime."
The ruling also noted that "the ordinance also left the [sexually-oriented businesses] ample opportunity to purvey their speech at other times of the day and night." Erotic dancing is a protected form of expression, but the ruling supports the argument that the ordinance does not ban the businesses wholesale, but rather restricts the "time, place and manner of their operation."
The City of Dallas had based its evidence on the link between the hours of operation to crime statistics.
"From late 2020 to early 2021, a rash of shootings in or around Dallas [sexually-oriented businesses] left multiple people dead. The police responded by forming a task force to patrol near [sexually-oriented businesses] on busy nights after midnight. Operating for about eight months during 2021, the task force made 123 felony arrests, responded to 134 calls for service, issued over 1,100 citations, and made more than 350 drug and weapon seizures," the ruling stated.
The ruling also states that, according to data compiled from 2019 to 2021, roughly 67% of all aggravated assaults, rapes, robberies and murders that occurred from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. were within a 500-foot radius of sexually-oriented businesses within the city. In 2021, that percentage jumped to 76%, according to the filing.
If the clubs appeal further, their case would have to be heard by the Supreme Court of the United States.
More Texas headlines:
