Chapter 9.37 — NEWSRACKS IN PUBLIC RIGHTS-OF-WAY

The council of the City of Commerce finds and declares that:

(1)

The public display of pictorial material depicting nudity and sexual conduct in publications contained in newsracks located on public rights-of-way is patently offensive and harmful to passersby when readily visible to them, and is detrimental to a healthy moral environment to which persons of the City of Commerce are entitled.

(2)

Such public displays are thrust indiscriminately on children and unwilling adults and constitute assaults upon individual privacy.

(3)

Every person is entitled to use the public rights-of-way in the City of Commerce without being subjected to such public displays.

(4)

Such public displays constitute a public nuisance.

(5)

The provisions and prohibitions hereinafter contained and enacted are in pursuance of and for the purpose of securing and promoting the public health, morals and general welfare of persons in the city of commerce in their use of public rights-of-way.

(Ord. 299 § 1(part), 1981).

Whenever the following words and phrases are used in this chapter, they shall have the meaning ascribed to them in this section:

(1)

"Newsrack" means any self-service or coin-operated box, container, storage unit, or other dispenser installed, used or maintained for the display, sale or distribution of publications.

(2)

"Nudity" means the showing with less than a fully opaque covering of the genitals, pubic hair, buttocks, natal cleft, perineum, anus or anal region of any person, other than a child under the age of puberty, or any

portion of the breast at or below the areola thereof of any female person, other than a child under the age of puberty.

(3)

"Sexual conduct" means an act of sexual intercourse, masturbation, homosexuality, sodomy, bestiality, anal intercourse, oral copulation, flagellation, or other act of sexual arousal involving any physical contact with a persons's clothed or unclothed genitals, pubic region, public hair, buttocks, natal cleft, perineum, anus or anal region, or, if such person be a female, breast.

(4)

"Pictorial material" means any material suggesting or conveying a visual image, and includes, but is not limited to, a photograph, painting or drawing.

(5)

"Public right-of-way" means any place of any nature which is dedicated to use by the public for pedestrian or vehicular travel, and includes, but is not limited to, a street, sidewalk, curb, gutter, crossing, intersection, parkway, highway, alley, lane, mall, court, way, avenue, boulevard, road, roadway, viaduct, subway, tunnel, bridge, thoroughfare, park, square, or any other similar public way.

(Ord. 299 §1(part), 1981).

No person shall knowingly place or maintain in any newsrack which rests in whole or in part, upon, in, or on any portion of a public right-of-way, or which projects onto, into, or over any part of a public right-of-way, any publication or material which while in the newsrack exposes to public view any pictorial material which depicts or appears to depict nudity or actual or simulated sexual conduct.

(Ord. 299 §1(part), 1981).

Every person who violates any provision of this chapter is guilty of an infraction or a misdemeanor. Every person who having been twice convicted for any violation of this chapter is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars, or imprisonment in the county jail for not more than thirty days, or both; provided, that both of the prior violations occurred within two years' period of the subsequent violation.

(Ord. 299 §1(part), 1981).

Any violation of this chapter is declared to be a public nuisance which may be abated as provided by law in addition to any infraction or misdemeanor offenses.

(Ord. 299 §1(part), 1981).