ATLANTA — The city of Sandy Springs, Ga., has won yet another legal battle involving adult entertainment venues.
On Monday, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that the city has the right to deny a liquor license to a business that provides nude entertainment.
In a unanimous decision, the high court upheld as constitutional the city’s ordinances that ban the sale of alcohol in such venues.
The case centered on Maxim Cabaret, now known as the Coronet Club, which filed a lawsuit against the city in 2006, shortly after Sandy Springs became incorporated. The suit contended the city’s ordinance prohibiting alcohol sales was unconstitutional.
In a decision written by state Justice Britt Grant, the court held that such laws as Sandy Springs can “constitutionally regulate negative secondary effects of strip clubs without unduly inhibiting free speech or expression.”
During the course of litigation at Fulton County Superior Court, the city amended its adult business ordinances numerous times.
But in its eighth amended complaint, Maxim asserted that because the original ordinances were unconstitutional, they were automatically void and could not be cured by amendment.
The city, however, came out on top at Superior Court and won summary judgment. Maxim appealed to the Supreme Court.
Grant, in the decision released today, wrote: “At the heart of Maxim’s challenges to the city’s adult business regulations is its desire to continue operating as a full-nudity strip club while also selling alcoholic beverages to its customers.”
“It is true that both the First Amendment and the free speech provision of the Georgia Constitution have been held to protect nude dancing as a form of expressive conduct. But some limitation on the time, place or manner of such expression is constitutionally permissible, as are appropriately limited regulations targeting the negative secondary effects of adult entertainment establishments,” Grant wrote.
Maxim also argued in the case that the trial court erred in finding that it lacked standing to challenge the alcohol code. The court shot down that argument, as well.
“Because the city’s adult business licensing regulations prohibiting the sale of alcohol are not unconstitutional, Maxim is not permitted to apply for an alcohol license in the first place, and therefore lacks standing to challenge the city’s alcohol code, which applies only to businesses applying for or possessing a license to sell alcohol,” Grant wrote.
Today’s decision in Maxim Cabaret Inc. et al. v. City of Sandy Springs is the second legal defeat in a week involving Sandy Springs' adult businesses.
Last Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to a long-running adult zoning case, Flanigan’s Enterprises Inc., et al v. City of Sandy Springs, Ga.
U.S. justices denied certiorari without comment, leaving intact an 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that sided with Sandy Springs.
The 11th Circuit's decision in the eight-year-old case — involving Inserection, an adult video and sex toy and novelty store, and two strip clubs, Mardi Gras and Flashers — upheld a lower court’s decision from a year ago that ruled the city’s ordinances involving adult entertainment businesses in regards to zoning were not unconstitutional.