Updated at 9:37 a.m., Tuesday, December 5, 2006
Supreme Court upholds city's stand on aerial banners
Advertiser Staff
The United States Supreme Court yesterday ended the long-running case involving aerial banners in Hawai'i, leaving standing the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' decision earlier this year that the City's ban on aerial tow-banner advertising is constitutional.The decision represents the end of litigation in which both the Hawai'i District Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had rejected claims by the plaintiff that Honolulu's prohibition of tow-banner advertising over its beaches and in its skies infringed free speech and equal protection rights.
The courts below found that the ordinance was viewpoint-neutral and did not suppress ideas, noting that the plaintiff — Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, Inc. — and others had available ample alternatives to towing aerial banners as means for expressing ideas.
"We're elated with the high court's ruling,"Mayor Mufi Hannemann said in a released statement. "It vindicates the economic, aesthetic and safety justifications advanced all along by the City in support of the ordinance."
