Court Upholds Escort Services Licensing : Victory for Cities in Curbing Possible Fronts for Prostitution Seen

Cities have the authority to license and regulate escort services that law enforcement authorities believe are fronts for prostitution, the state Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous decision Thursday.

In a case closely watched by several cities with such ordinances, among them Los Angeles, the court reversed a Court of Appeal decision that said because there already are state laws against prostitution, local governments could not duplicate the state effort by licensing dating services.

The state Constitution says local governments cannot adopt ordinances in areas where there are state laws.

However, in an opinion by Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird, the court said cities can legitimately “address problems generated by business involvement in activities that may be inimical to the health, safety and welfare of the community.”

Two individuals challenged a San Francisco ordinance regulating escort services on the grounds that it duplicated state law. They also said it violated the right to privacy of customers, because it required the services to make their patrons’ names and addresses available to police. The American Civil Liberties Union also filed a brief on the privacy issue.

Acting in the case, the high court failed to rule on the privacy question and returned it to the appellate court for a decision on that issue.

However, it gave a limited victory to cities by deciding that state law does not preempt local regulation. The decision has implications beyond escort services, lawyers for Los Angeles and nine other cities said in a friend-of-the-court brief.

If the court had concluded that cities could not license escort services, the cities maintained, local officials also could have been barred from regulating “business which, absent some local regulation, might be predisposed to other criminal activity.”

Many cities license massage parlors and pawnshops, for example, in part because such businesses could possibly be involved in prostitution or the receiving of stolen property, both of which are illegal under state law.

“An ordinance is not transformed into a (state) statute prohibiting a crime simply because the city uses its licensing power to discourage illegitimate activities associated with certain businesses,” Bird wrote.

The suit was brought by Bruce Cohen and Keejan G. Low, who were described by their attorney, Jeffrey S. Ross, as San Francisco lawyers and taxpayers who were disturbed by what they saw as the vagueness of the ordinance, which was adopted in 1981.

Ross said neither plaintiff owns an interest in an escort company. (Cohen vs. Board of Supervisors, S.F. 24873)