Valentine v. Chrestensen

Background

A Florida citizen owned a former U.S. Navy submarine that he exhibited for profit in New York and printed handbills advertising admission. When he tried to hand out those bills in city streets, the Police Commissioner said the city sanitary code (§318) forbade distributing commercial advertising but would permit materials devoted only to information or public protest. The owner prepared a double-faced handbill with advertising on one side and a protest on the other, was stopped by police, and sued under the Fourteenth Amendment. The District Court issued an injunction, the Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed by a divided court, and the case reached this Court.

Reasoning

The core question was whether applying the ordinance to his handbills unlawfully limited speech. The Court said streets are proper places for sharing information and opinion, but government is not constitutionally barred from regulating purely commercial advertising. The opinion explained that regulation of street uses to protect public thoroughfares is for legislative judgment. The Court found the protest had been attached to the advertisement with the intent to evade the law; permitting that tactic would allow merchants to bypass the ban by appending civic appeals. For those reasons the Court reversed the lower courts’ decree and allowed the city rule to apply.

Real world impact

The decision permits cities to enforce bans on street distribution of commercial advertising and to block mixed handbills designed to avoid those bans. It limits how businesses and promoters may use sidewalks to advertise and reinforces municipal control over public spaces.