HomeMy WebLinkAboutA018 - letter to council notifying them of other city appeals City of AMES, Iowa
L� 50010
JOHN R. KLAUS (515) 232-6210
City Attorney
ANDRA M. ZENK '`;
Assistant City Attorney
May 6, 1980 Q:V JA
Honorable F. Paul Goodland, Mayor MAY, ,
And Members of the City Council
Of The City of Ames, Iowa
In Re : Paraphernalia Ordinance
Dear Mayor Goodland and Council Members :
Since the last meeting of the City Council I have had occas-
sion to speak again with the attorney representing the City of
Novi, upon whose ordinance the ordinance now before the City
Council is largely patterned. As you know, the constitutiona-
lity of this ordinance was sustained by decision of the U. S.
District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. That case
is now in appeal, I am told, to the Sixth Circuit Court of
Appeals . More interestingly, I learned from the attorneys
representing the City of Novi that the same ordinance was also
adopted by the City of Ferndale, Michigan, and somewhat para-
doxically the City of Ferndale' s ordinance was declared uncon-
stitutionally vague by the U. S. District Court for the Eastern
District of Michigan on April 9 . Music Stop , Inc . vs . City of
Ferndale, 48 Law Week 2701. The way this occurrence was ex-
plained to me is that a different judge of the same court did
not feel bound by the opinion of the other judge or prior deci-
sion in the same court . The principal apparent difference in
the two cases seems to be that the Novi case involved a "tobac-
co shop" for which most of the inventory was "paraphernalia" ,
whereas the Ferndale case involved a record store. In the
Ferndale case the court was of the opinion that it was not
constitutionally permissible to expect or require the proprietors
and operators of the record store to be knowledgeable with re-
spect to the primary use for which the items of "paraphernalia"
they were selling were designed and adapted.
Respectfully /submitted,
John R. 1 us
City Attorney
A Combining Education and Industry vcirh Hospitality