Gluck v. County of Los Angeles

In Gluck v. County of Los Angeles (1979) 93 Cal.App.3d 121, the court held that a news rack ordinance which was narrowly drawn to protect persons from unwilling exposure to explicit sexual material which is likely to be offensive to the unwilling viewer should be viewed as a "time, place and manner regulation," and as such, did not intrude in the state preempted areas of obscenity and proscribed sexual behavior. After reviewing the decisional law the court concluded: "The common thread of the cases is that if there is a significant local interest to be served which may differ from one locality to another then the presumption favors the validity of the local ordinance against an attack of state preemption. Here we deal with an ordinance regulating the use of streets and sidewalks, one both particularly within the realm of local government and one where conditions peculiar to the locality may differ from place to place. The problem of the 'captive' viewer may be quite different in Los Angeles County than it is in Mono or in San Francisco." (At p. 133.)