Members of the City Council of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent
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Full Opinion
MEMBERS OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES ET AL.
v.
TAXPAYERS FOR VINCENT ET AL.
Supreme Court of United States.
*791 Anthony Saul Alperin argued the cause for appellants. With him on the briefs were Ira Reiner and Gary R. Netzer.
Wayne S. Canterbury argued the cause and filed a brief for appellees.[*]
A brief of amici curiae urging affirmance was filed by Alan L. Schlosser, Amitai Schwartz, Fred Okrand, and Neil H. O'Donnell for the American Civil Liberties Union et al.
JUSTICE STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 28.04 of the Los Angeles Municipal Code prohibits the posting of signs on public property.[1] The question presented *792 is whether that prohibition abridges appellees' freedom of speech within the meaning of the First Amendment.[2]
In March 1979, Roland Vincent was a candidate for election to the Los Angeles City Council. A group of his supporters known as Taxpayers for Vincent (Taxpayers) entered into a contract with a political sign service company known as Candidates' Outdoor Graphics Service (COGS) to fabricate and post signs with Vincent's name on them. COGS produced 15- by 44-inch cardboard signs and attached them to utility poles at various locations by draping them over crosswires *793 which support the poles and stapling the cardboard together at the bottom. The signs' message was: "Roland Vincent City Council."
Acting under the authority of § 28.04 of the Municipal Code, employees of the city's Bureau of Street Maintenance routinely removed all posters attached to utility poles and similar objects covered by the ordinance, including the COGS signs. The weekly sign removal report covering the period March 1-March 7, 1979, indicated that among the 1,207 signs removed from public property during that week, 48 were identified as "Roland Vincent" signs. Most of the other signs identified in that report were apparently commercial in character.[3]
On March 12, 1979, Taxpayers and COGS filed this action in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, naming the city, the Director of the Bureau of Street Maintenance, and members of the City Council as defendants.[4] They sought an injunction against enforcement of the ordinance as well as compensatory and punitive damages. After engaging in discovery, the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment on the issue of liability. The District Court entered findings of fact, concluded that the ordinance was constitutional, and granted the City's motion.
The District Court's findings do not purport to resolve any disputed issue of fact; instead, they summarize material in the record that appears to be uncontroverted. The findings recite that the principal responsibility for locating and removing *794 signs and handbills posted in violation of § 28.04 is assigned to the Street Use Inspection Division of the city's Bureau of Street Maintenance. The court found that both political and nonpolitical signs are illegally posted and that they are removed "without regard to their content."[5]
After explaining the purposes for which the City's zoning code had been enacted, and noting that the prohibition in § 28.04 furthered those purposes, the District Court found that the large number of illegally posted signs "constitute a clutter and visual blight."[6] With specific reference to the posting of the COGS signs on utility pole crosswires, the District Court found that such posting "would add somewhat to the blight and inevitably would encourage greatly increased posting in other unauthorized and unsightly places . . . ."[7]
In addition, the District Court found that placing signs on utility poles creates a potential safety hazard, and that other violations of § 28.04 "block views and otherwise cause traffic hazards."[8] Finally, the District Court concluded that the sign prohibition does not prevent taxpayers or COGS "from *795 exercising their free speech rights on the public streets and in other public places; they remain free to picket and parade, to distribute handbills, to carry signs and to post their signs and handbills on their automobiles and on private property with the permission of the owners thereof."[9]
In its conclusions of law the District Court characterized the esthetic and economic interests in improving the beauty of the City "by eliminating clutter and visual blight" as "legitimate and compelling."[10] Those interests, together with the interest in protecting the safety of workmen who must scale utility poles and the interest in eliminating traffic hazards, adequately supported the sign prohibition as a reasonable regulation affecting the time, place, and manner of expression.
The Court of Appeals did not question any of the District Court's findings of fact, but it rejected some of its conclusions of law. The Court of Appeals reasoned that the ordinance was presumptively unconstitutional because significant First Amendment interests were involved. It noted that the City had advanced three separate justifications for the ordinance, but concluded that none of them was sufficient. The Court of Appeals held that the City had failed to make a sufficient showing that its asserted interests in esthetics and preventing visual clutter were substantial because it had not offered to demonstrate that the City was engaged in a comprehensive effort to remove other contributions to an unattractive environment in commercial and industrial areas. The City's interest in minimizing traffic hazards was rejected because it was readily apparent that no substantial traffic problems would result from permitting the posting of certain kinds of signs on many of the publicly owned objects covered by the ordinance. Finally, while acknowledging that a flat prohibition against signs on certain objects such as fire hydrants and traffic signals would be a permissible method of preventing *796 interference with the intended use of public property, and that regulation of the size, design, and construction of posters, or of the method of removing them, might be reasonable, the Court of Appeals concluded that the City had not justified its total ban.[11]
In its appeal to this Court the City challenges the Court of Appeals' holding that § 28.04 is unconstitutional on its face. Taxpayers and COGS defend that holding and also contend that the ordinance is unconstitutional as applied to their posting of political campaign signs on the crosswires of utility poles. There are two quite different ways in which a statute or ordinance may be considered invalid "on its face" either because it is unconstitutional in every conceivable application, or because it seeks to prohibit such a broad range of protected conduct that it is unconstitutionally "overbroad." We shall analyze the "facial" challenges to the ordinance, and then address its specific application to appellees.
I
The seminal cases in which the Court held state legislation unconstitutional "on its face" did not involve any departure from the general rule that a litigant only has standing to vindicate his own constitutional rights. In Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359 (1931),[12] and Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U. S. *797 444 (1938),[13] the statutes were unconstitutional as applied to the defendants' conduct, but they were also unconstitutional on their face because it was apparent that any attempt to enforce such legislation would create an unacceptable risk of the suppression of ideas.[14] In cases of this character a holding of facial invalidity expresses the conclusion that the statute *798 could never be applied in a valid manner. Such holdings[15] invalidated entire statutes, but did not create any exception from the general rule that constitutional adjudication requires a review of the application of a statute to the conduct of the party before the Court.
Subsequently, however, the Court did recognize an exception to this general rule for laws that are written so broadly that they may inhibit the constitutionally protected speech of third parties. This "overbreadth" doctrine has its source in Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88 (1940). In that case the Court concluded that the very existence of some broadly written statutes may have such a deterrent effect on free expression that they should be subject to challenge even by a party whose own conduct may be unprotected.[16] The Court *799 has repeatedly held that such a statute may be challenged on its face even though a more narrowly drawn statute would be valid as applied to the party in the case before it.[17] This exception from the general rule is predicated on "a judicial prediction or assumption that the statute's very existence may cause others not before the court to refrain from constitutionally protected speech or expression." Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U. S. 601, 612 (1973).
In the development of the overbreadth doctrine the Court has been sensitive to the risk that the doctrine itself might sweep so broadly that the exception to ordinary standing requirements would swallow the general rule. In order to decide whether the overbreadth exception is applicable in a particular case, we have weighed the likelihood that the statute's very existence will inhibit free expression.
"[T]here comes a point where that effect at best a prediction cannot, with confidence, justify invalidating a statute on its face and so prohibiting a State from enforcing the statute against conduct that is admittedly within its power to proscribe. To put the matter another way, particularly where conduct and not merely speech is involved, we believe that the overbreadth of a *800 statute must not only be real, but substantial as well, judged in relation to the statute's plainly legitimate sweep." Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U. S., at 615 (citation omitted).[18]
The concept of "substantial overbreadth" is not readily reduced to an exact definition. It is clear, however, that the mere fact that one can conceive of some impermissible applications of a statute is not sufficient to render it susceptible to an overbreadth challenge.[19] On the contrary, the requirement of substantial overbreadth stems from the underlying justification for the overbreadth exception itself the interest in preventing an invalid statute from inhibiting the speech of third parties who are not before the Court.
"The requirement of substantial overbreadth is directly derived from the purpose and nature of the doctrine. While a sweeping statute, or one incapable of limitation, *801 has the potential to repeatedly chill the exercise of expressive activity by many individuals, the extent of deterrence of protected speech can be expected to decrease with the declining reach of the regulation." New York v. Ferber, 458 U. S. 747, 772 (1982) (footnote omitted).
In short, there must be a realistic danger that the statute itself will significantly compromise recognized First Amendment protections of parties not before the Court for it to be facially challenged on overbreadth grounds. See Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville, 422 U. S. 205, 216 (1975). See also Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Assn., 436 U. S. 447, 462, n. 20 (1978); Parker v. Levy, 417 U. S. 733, 760-761 (1974).
The Court of Appeals concluded that the ordinance was vulnerable to an overbreadth challenge because it was an "overinclusive" response to traffic concerns and not the "least drastic means" of preventing interference with the normal use of public property. This conclusion rested on an evaluation of the assumed effect of the ordinance on third parties, rather than on any specific consideration of the impact of the ordinance on the parties before the court. This is not, however, an appropriate case to entertain a facial challenge based on overbreadth. For we have found nothing in the record to indicate that the ordinance will have any different impact on any third parties' interests in free speech than it has on Taxpayers and COGS.
Taxpayers and COGS apparently would agree that the prohibition against posting signs on most of the publicly owned objects mentioned in the ordinance is perfectly reasonable. Thus, they do not dispute the City's power to proscribe the attachment of any handbill or sign to any sidewalk, crosswalk, curb, lamppost, hydrant, or lifesaving equipment.[20] Their *802 position with respect to utility poles is not entirely clear, but they do contend that it is unconstitutional to prohibit the attachment of their cardboard signs to the horizontal crosswires supporting utility poles during a political campaign. They have, in short, failed to identify any significant difference between their claim that the ordinance is invalid on overbreadth grounds and their claim that it is unconstitutional when applied to their political signs. Specifically, Taxpayers and COGS have not attempted to demonstrate that the ordinance applies to any conduct more likely to be protected by the First Amendment than their own crosswire signs. Indeed, the record suggests that many of the signs posted in violation of the ordinance are posted in such a way that they may create safety or traffic problems that COGS has tried to avoid. Accordingly, on this record it appears that if the ordinance may be validly applied to COGS, it can be validly applied to most if not all of the signs of parties not before the Court. Appellees have simply failed to demonstrate a realistic danger that the ordinance will significantly compromise recognized First Amendment protections of individuals not before the Court. It would therefore be inappropriate in this case to entertain an overbreadth challenge to the ordinance.
Taxpayers and COGS do argue generally that the City's interest in eliminating visual blight is not sufficiently weighty to justify an abridgment of speech. If that were the only interest the ordinance advanced, then this argument would be analogous to the facial challenges involved in cases like Stromberg and Lovell. But as previously observed, appellees acknowledge that the ordinance serves safety interests in many of its applications, and hence do not argue that the ordinance can never be validly applied. Instead, appellees argue that they have placed their signs in locations where only the esthetic interest is implicated. In addition, they argue that they have developed an expertise in not "placing signs in offensive manners which will alienate its own clientele *803 or their constituencies,"[21] and emphasize the special value of free communication during political campaigns, see Metromedia, Inc. v. San Diego, 453 U. S. 490, 555 (1981) (STEVENS, J., dissenting in part); id., at 550 (REHNQUIST, J., dissenting). In light of these arguments, appellees' attack on the ordinance is basically a challenge to the ordinance as applied to their activities. We therefore limit our analysis of the constitutionality of the ordinance to the concrete case before us, and now turn to the arguments that it is invalid as applied to the expressive activity of Taxpayers and COGS.[22]
II
The ordinance prohibits appellees from communicating with the public in a certain manner, and presumably diminishes the total quantity of their communication in the City.[23] The application of the ordinance to appellees' expressive activities surely raises the question whether the ordinance abridges their "freedom of speech" within the meaning of the First Amendment, and appellees certainly have standing to challenge the application of the ordinance to their own expressive activities. "But to say the ordinance presents a *804 First Amendment issue is not necessarily to say that it constitutes a First Amendment violation." Metromedia, Inc. v. San Diego, 453 U. S., at 561 (BURGER, C. J., dissenting). It has been clear since this Court's earliest decisions concerning the freedom of speech that the state may sometimes curtail speech when necessary to advance a significant and legitimate state interest. Schenck v. United States, 249 U. S. 47, 52 (1919).
As Stromberg and Lovell demonstrate, there are some purported interests such as a desire to suppress support for a minority party or an unpopular cause, or to exclude the expression of certain points of view from the marketplace of ideas that are so plainly illegitimate that they would immediately invalidate the rule. The general principle that has emerged from this line of cases is that the First Amendment forbids the government to regulate speech in ways that favor some viewpoints or ideas at the expense of others. See Bolger v. Youngs Drug Products Corp., 463 U. S. 60, 65, 72 (1983); Consolidated Edison Co. v. Public Service Comm'n, 447 U. S. 530, 535-536 (1980); Carey v. Brown, 447 U. S. 455, 462-463 (1980); Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc., 427 U. S. 50, 63-65, 67-68 (1976) (plurality opinion); Police Department of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U. S. 92, 95-96 (1972).
That general rule has no application to this case. For there is not even a hint of bias or censorship in the City's enactment or enforcement of this ordinance. There is no claim that the ordinance was designed to suppress certain ideas that the City finds distasteful or that it has been applied to appellees because of the views that they express. The text of the ordinance is neutral indeed it is silent concerning any speaker's point of view, and the District Court's findings indicate that it has been applied to appellees and others in an evenhanded manner.
In United States v. O'Brien, 391 U. S. 367 (1968), the Court set forth the appropriate framework for reviewing a viewpoint-neutral regulation of this kind:
*805 "[A] government regulation is sufficiently justified if it is within the constitutional power of the Government; if it furthers an important or substantial governmental interest; if the governmental interest is unrelated to the suppression of free expression; and if the incidental restriction on alleged First Amendment freedoms is no greater than is essential to the furtherance of that interest." Id., at 377.
It is well settled that the state may legitimately exercise its police powers to advance esthetic values. Thus, in Berman v. Parker, 348 U. S. 26, 32-33 (1954), in referring to the power of the legislature to remove blighted housing, this Court observed that such housing may be "an ugly sore, a blight on the community which robs it of charm, which makes it a place from which men turn." Ibid. We concluded: "The concept of the public welfare is broad and inclusive. The values it represents are spiritual as well as physical, aesthetic as well as monetary." Id., at 33 (citation omitted). See also Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, 438 U. S. 104, 129 (1978); Village of Belle Terre v. Boraas, 416 U. S. 1, 9 (1974); Euclid v. Ambler Co., 272 U. S. 365, 387-388 (1926); Welch v. Swasey, 214 U. S. 91, 108 (1909).
In this case, taxpayers and COGS do not dispute that it is within the constitutional power of the City to attempt to improve its appearance, or that this interest is basically unrelated to the suppression of ideas. Therefore the critical inquiries are whether that interest is sufficiently substantial to justify the effect of the ordinance on appellees' expression, and whether that effect is no greater than necessary to accomplish the City's purpose.
III
In Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S. 77 (1949), the Court rejected the notion that a city is powerless to protect its citizens from unwanted exposure to certain methods of expression which may legitimately be deemed a public nuisance. *806 In upholding an ordinance that prohibited loud and raucous sound trucks, the Court held that the State had a substantial interest in protecting its citizens from unwelcome noise.[24] In Lehman v. City of Shaker Heights, 418 U. S. 298 (1974), the Court upheld the city's prohibition of political advertising on its buses, stating that the city was entitled to protect unwilling viewers against intrusive advertising that may interfere with the city's goal of making its buses "rapid, convenient, pleasant, and inexpensive," id., at 302-303 (plurality opinion). See also id., at 307 (Douglas, J., concurring in judgment); Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville, 422 U. S., at 209, and n. 5. These cases indicate that the municipalities have a weighty, essentially esthetic interest in proscribing intrusive and unpleasant formats for expression.
Metromedia, Inc. v. San Diego, supra, dealt with San Diego's prohibition of certain forms of outdoor billboards. There the Court considered the city's interest in avoiding visual clutter, and seven Justices explicitly concluded *807 that this interest was sufficient to justify a prohibition of billboards, see id., at 507-508, 510 (opinion of WHITE, J., joined by Stewart, MARSHALL, and POWELL, JJ.); id., at 552 (STEVENS, J., dissenting in part); id., at 559-561 (BURGER, C. J., dissenting); id., at 570 (REHNQUIST, J., dissenting).[25] JUSTICE WHITE, writing for the plurality, expressly concluded that the city's esthetic interests were sufficiently substantial to provide an acceptable justification for a content-neutral prohibition against the use of billboards; San Diego's interest in its appearance was undoubtedly a substantial governmental goal. Id., at 507-508.[26]
We reaffirm the conclusion of the majority in Metromedia. The problem addressed by this ordinance the visual assault on the citizens of Los Angeles presented by an accumulation of signs posted on public property constitutes a significant substantive evil within the City's power to prohibit. "[T]he city's interest in attempting to preserve [or improve] the quality of urban life is one that must be accorded high respect." Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc., 427 U. S., at 71 (plurality opinion).
*808 IV
We turn to the question whether the scope of the restriction on appellees' expressive activity is substantially broader than necessary to protect the City's interest in eliminating visual clutter. The incidental restriction on expression which results from the City's attempt to accomplish such a purpose is considered justified as a reasonable regulation of the time, place, or manner of expression if it is narrowly tailored to serve that interest. See, e. g., Heffron v. International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Inc., 452 U. S. 640, 647-648 (1981); Schad v. Mount Ephraim, 452 U. S. 61, 68-71 (1981); Carey v. Brown, 447 U. S., at 470-471 (1980); Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U. S. 104, 115-117 (1972); Police Department of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U. S., at 98. The District Court found that the signs prohibited by the ordinance do constitute visual clutter and blight. By banning these signs, the City did no more than eliminate the exact source of the evil it sought to remedy.[27] The plurality wrote in Metromedia: "It is not speculative to recognize that bill-boards by their very nature, wherever located and however constructed, can be perceived as an `esthetic harm.' " 453 U. S., at 510. The same is true of posted signs.
It is true that the esthetic interest in preventing the kind of litter that may result from the distribution of leaflets on the public streets and sidewalks cannot support a prophylactic prohibition against the citizen's exercise of that method of expressing his views. In Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147 (1939), the Court held that ordinances that absolutely prohibited handbilling on the streets were invalid. The Court explained that cities could adequately protect the esthetic interest *809 in avoiding litter without abridging protected expression merely by penalizing those who actually litter. See id., at 162. Taxpayers contend that their interest in supporting Vincent's political campaign, which affords them a constitutional right to distribute brochures and leaflets on the public streets of Los Angeles, provides equal support for their asserted right to post temporary signs on objects adjacent to the streets and sidewalks. They argue that the mere fact that their temporary signs "add somewhat" to the city's visual clutter is entitled to no more weight than the temporary unsightliness of discarded handbills and the additional street-cleaning burden that were insufficient to justify the ordinances reviewed in Schneider.
The rationale of Schneider is inapposite in the context of the instant case. There, individual citizens were actively exercising their right to communicate directly with potential recipients of their message. The conduct continued only while the speakers or distributors remained on the scene. In this case, appellees posted dozens of temporary signs throughout an area where they would remain unattended until removed. As the Court expressly noted in Schneider, the First Amendment does not "deprive a municipality of power to enact regulations against throwing literature broadcast in the streets. Prohibition of such conduct would not abridge the constitutional liberty since such activity bears no necessary relationship to the freedom to speak, write, print or distribute information or opinion." 308 U. S., at 160-161. In short, there is no constitutional impediment to "the punishment of those who actually throw papers on the streets." Id., at 162. A distributor of leaflets has no right simply to scatter his pamphlets in the air or to toss large quantities of paper from the window of a tall building or a low flying airplane. Characterizing such an activity as a separate means of communication does not diminish the State's power to condemn it as a public nuisance. The right recognized in *810 Schneider is to tender the written material to the passerby who may reject it or accept it, and who thereafter may keep it, dispose of it properly, or incur the risk of punishment if he lets it fall to the ground. One who is rightfully on a street open to the public "carries with him there as elsewhere the constitutional right to express his views in an orderly fashion. This right extends to the communication of ideas by handbills and literature as well as by the spoken word." Jamison v. Texas, 318 U. S. 413, 416 (1943); see also Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 559, 578 (1965) (Black, J., dissenting in part).
With respect to signs posted by appellees, however, it is the tangible medium of expressing the message that has the adverse impact on the appearance of the landscape. In Schneider, an antilittering statute could have addressed the substantive evil without prohibiting expressive activity, whereas application of the prophylactic rule actually employed gratuitously infringed upon the right of an individual to communicate directly with a willing listener. Here, the substantive evil visual blight is not merely a possible byproduct of the activity, but is created by the medium of expression itself. In contrast to Schneider, therefore, the application of the ordinance in this case responds precisely to the substantive problem which legitimately concerns the City. The ordinance curtails no more speech than is necessary to accomplish its purpose.
V
The Court of Appeals accepted the argument that a prohibition against the use of unattractive signs cannot be justified on esthetic grounds if it fails to apply to all equally unattractive signs wherever they might be located. A comparable argument was categorically rejected in Metromedia. In that case it was argued that the city could not simultaneously permit billboards to be used for onsite advertising and also justify the prohibition against offsite advertising on esthetic grounds, since both types of advertising were equally unattractive. *811 The Court held, however, that the city could reasonably conclude that the esthetic interest was outweighed by the countervailing interest in one kind of advertising even though it was not outweighed by the other.[28] So here, the validity of the esthetic interest in the elimination of signs on public property is not compromised by failing to extend the ban to private property. The private citizen's interest in controlling the use of his own property justifies the disparate treatment. Moreover, by not extending the ban to all locations, a significant opportunity to communicate by means of temporary signs is preserved, and private property owners' esthetic concerns will keep the posting of signs on their property within reasonable bounds. Even if some visual blight remains, a partial, content-neutral ban may nevertheless enhance the City's appearance.
Furthermore, there is no finding that in any area where appellees seek to place signs, there are already so many signs posted on adjacent private property that the elimination of appellees' signs would have an inconsequential effect on the esthetic values with which the City is concerned. There is simply no predicate in the findings of the District Court for *812 the conclusion that the prohibition against the posting of appellees' signs fails to advance the City's esthetic interest.
VI
While the First Amendment does not guarantee the right to employ every conceivable method of communication at all times and in all places, Heffron v. International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Inc., 452 U. S., at 647, a restriction on expressive activity may be invalid if the remaining modes of communication are inadequate. See, e. g., United States v. Grace, 461 U. S. 171, 177 (1983); Heffron v. International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Inc., 452 U. S., at 654-655; Consolidated Edison Co. v. Public Service Comm'n, 447 U. S., at 535; Linmark Associates, Inc. v. Willingboro, 431 U. S. 85, 93 (1977). The Los Angeles ordinance does not affect any individual's freedom to exercise the right to speak and to distribute literature in the same place where the posting of signs on public property is prohibited.[29] To the extent that the posting of signs on public property has advantages over these forms of expression, see, e. g., Talley v. California, 362 U. S. 60, 64-65 (1960), there is no reason to believe that these same advantages cannot be obtained through other means. To the contrary, the findings of the District Court indicate that there are ample alternative modes of communication in Los Angeles. Notwithstanding appellees' general assertions in their brief concerning the utility of political posters, nothing in the findings indicates that the posting of political posters on public property is a uniquely valuable or important mode of communication, or that appellees' ability to communicate effectively is threatened by ever-increasing restrictions on expression.[30]
*813 VII
Appellees suggest that the public property covered by the ordinance either is itself a "public forum" for First Amendment purposes, or at least should be treated in the same respect as the "public forum" in which the property is located. "Traditional public forum property occupies a special position in terms of First Amendment protection," United States v. Grace, 461 U. S., at 180, and appellees maintain that their sign-posting activities are entitled to this protection.
In Hague v. CIO, 307 U. S. 496, 515-516 (1939) (opinion of Roberts, J.), it was recognized:
"Wherever the title of streets and parks may rest, they have immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public, and, time out of mind, have been used for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions. Such use of the streets and public places has, from ancient times, been a part of the privileges, immunities, rights, and liberties of citizens. The privilege of a citizen of the United States to use the streets and parks for communication of views on national questions may be regulated in the interest of all; it is not absolute, but relative, and must be exercised in subordination to the general comfort and convenience, and in consonance with peace and *814 good order; but it must not, in the guise of regulation, be abridged or denied."
See also Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U. S., at 115; Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham, 394 U. S. 147, 152 (1969); Kunz v. New York, 340 U. S. 290, 293 (1951); Schneider v. State, 308 U. S., at 163.
Appellees' reliance on the public forum doctrine is misplaced. They fail to demonstrate the existence of a traditional right of access respecting such items as utility poles for purposes of their communication comparable to that recognized for public streets and parks, and it is clear that "the First Amendment does not guarantee access to government property simply because it is owned or controlled by the government." United States Postal Service v. Greenburgh Civic Assns., 453 U. S. 114, 129 (1981). Rather, the "existence of a right of access to public property and the standard by which limitations upon such a right must be evaluated differ depending on the character of the property at issue." Perry Education Assn. v. Perry Local Educators' Assn., 460 U. S. 37, 44 (1983).
Lampposts can of course be used as signposts, but the mere fact that government property can be used as a vehicle for communication does not mean that the Constitution requires such uses to be permitted. Cf. United States Postal Service v. Greenburgh Civic Assns., 453 U. S., at 131.[31] Public property which is not by tradition or designation a forum for *815 public communication may be reserved by the State "for its intended purposes, communicative or otherwise, as long as the regulation on speech is reasonable and not an effort to suppress expression merely because public officials oppose the speaker's view." Perry Education Assn. v. Perry Local Educators' Assn., 460 U. S., at 46. Given our analysis of the legitimate interest served by the ordinance, its viewpoint neutrality, and the availability of alte