Court Limits Cities’ Control of Newsracks : Ordinance in Ohio Violates Free-Speech Rights, Justices Rule

The Supreme Court, striking down an ordinance from the Cleveland suburb of Lakewood, Ohio, today limited communities’ power to regulate the placement of newspaper coin boxes on public sidewalks.

The court, by a 4-3 vote, ruled that the Lakewood ordinance violated free-speech rights because it vested the mayor with too much discretion in deciding which boxes would be allowed.

The ordinance empowered the city’s mayor to grant or deny applications for annual permits to publishers to place the boxes, called newsracks, on public property.

The Supreme Court’s decision dealt only with the mayoral discretion. It sent the case back to the lower courts to determine whether the ordinance, which also attached other conditions to the placement of newsracks, could survive constitutional attack if the mayoral discretion is dropped.

Writing for the court, Justice William J. Brennan Jr. said the ordinance could allow a mayor to deny permits based on a newspaper’s content.

‘Specter of ... Censorship’

“A law or policy permitting communication in a certain manner for some but not for others raises the specter of content and viewpoint censorship,” Brennan said.

Significantly, the court agreed with the American Newspaper Publishers Assn. and numerous publishing companies that placing newsracks is a form of communication in a public forum.

A host of local government organizations had contended that no free-speech questions existed in the case. They said various conditions should be attached to the property rights created when a newspaper is allowed to place a newsrack on public property.

The Lakewood controversy began in 1982, when the Plain Dealer, a Cleveland newspaper, sought permission to place newsracks in various locations in the community of about 62,000 residents.

The request was turned down in its entirety, and the newspaper later sued the city.

3 Parts Invalidated

A federal judge ruled that the ordinance, as amended, was valid. But the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals invalidated three parts, ruling:

--That the ordinance impermissibly gave the mayor “unlimited discretion to grant or deny a permit and make it subject to almost any conditions he may choose.”

--That the city’s architectural board of review had “standardless discretion to approve the design of newsracks” even when such authority was “not narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest.”

--That the newspaper could not be forced to insure and indemnify the city for personal-injury liability that might result from accidents involving newsracks because no such insurance is required for bus shelters or telephone booths.

The appeals court, however, ruled that Lakewood could charge rent for newsracks placed on public property. And it said the city could ban newsracks from residential neighborhoods.