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Regulating Pornography: Recent Legal Trends, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Since the Supreme Court's 1976 decision in Young v. American Mini Theaters, Inc., 427 U.S. 50 (1976) local governments have been permitted to single out adult bookstores and theaters for special regulatory treatment.' In the wake of Young, many municipalities enacted "pornography zoning" ordinances based on the Detroit dispersion model. Observing this trend in 1978, the Harvard Law Review noted that these municipalities were interpreting Young as approving pornography zoning as constitutionally acceptable "in nearly all circumstances." 2 This interpretation seemed incorrect, however, to the Review's editors: "Detroit's pornography zoning was found to satisfy three established First Amendment criteria; future …