452 U.S. 640, 101 S.Ct. 2559, 69 L.Ed.2d 298 (1981)
The Minnesota Agricultural Society, a public corporation organized under Minnesota law, operates the annual State Fair on a 125-acre state-owned tract in St. Paul.1 The Fair lasts twelve days and is conducted to exhibit the agricultural, stock-breeding, horticultural, mining, mechanical, industrial, and other products and resources of the state.2 During the past five years before the litigation, average total attendance reached 1,320,000 persons, with weekday daily attendance averaging 115,000 and weekend attendance averaging 160,000.3
Under statutory authority to make bylaws, ordinances, and rules for the government of the fair grounds, the Society promulgated Minnesota State Fair Rule 6.05.4 The rule provides that sale or distribution of any merchandise, including printed or written material, is a misdemeanor except under license issued by the Society and from a duly-licensed location.5 As construed and applied, the rule requires all persons, groups, or firms that desire to sell, exhibit, or distribute materials during the Fair to do so only from fixed locations on the fairgrounds, with space rented to all comers on a nondiscriminatory first-come, first-served basis according to size and location of the booth.6 The rule applies alike to nonprofit, charitable, and commercial enterprises, and more than 1,400 exhibitors and concessionaires rented space during the 1977 and 1978 Fairs.7
Respondents International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Inc., an international religious society espousing the views of the Krishna religion, and Joseph Beca, head of the Minneapolis ISKCON temple, engage in the religious ritual of Sankirtan.8 This ritual enjoins members to go into public places to distribute or sell religious literature and to solicit donations for the support of the Krishna religion.9 One day prior to the opening of the 1977 Minnesota State Fair, respondents filed suit against numerous state officials seeking a declaration that Rule 6.05, both on its face and as applied, violated their First Amendment rights and seeking injunctive relief prohibiting enforcement of the rule against ISKCON and its members.10
The trial court entered temporary orders to govern the conduct of the parties during the 1977 Fair.11 After that event concluded and following a hearing, the trial court granted the state officials' motion for summary judgment, upholding the constitutionality of Rule 6.05 while providing that respondents remained free to roam throughout areas of the fairgrounds generally open to the public for the purpose of discussing their religious beliefs with others.12 On appeal, the Minnesota Supreme Court reversed, holding that Rule 6.05 as applied to respondents unconstitutionally restricted the Krishnas' religious practice of Sankirtan.13 The United States Supreme Court granted the state officials' petition for a writ of certiorari.14
Whether a State, consistent with the First and Fourteenth Amendments, may require a religious organization desiring to distribute and sell religious literature and to solicit donations at a state fair to conduct those activities only at an assigned location within the fairgrounds even though application of the rule limits the religious practices of the organization?15
Time, place, and manner restrictions on protected speech are valid if they are justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech, serve a significant governmental interest, and leave open ample alternative channels for communication of the information.16
Yes. Rule 6.05 qualifies as content-neutral. It applies evenhandedly to all who wish to distribute and sell written materials or to solicit funds. No person or organization is permitted to engage in such activities except from a booth rented for those purposes.
The rule serves the significant governmental interest in maintaining the orderly movement of the crowd.17 The fairgrounds comprise a relatively small 125-acre area with over 1,400 exhibitors.18 Average daily attendance reaches 115,000 on weekdays and 160,000 on weekends.19 These conditions make the flow of the crowd and demands of safety more pressing than on public streets.20
The rule leaves open ample alternative channels for communication.21 ISKCON members may still roam the fairgrounds to engage in face-to-face discussions of their religious beliefs.22 They may also rent a booth to distribute and sell literature and solicit funds from that fixed location on the fairgrounds itself.23
Rule 6.05 is a valid time, place, and manner restriction, and the State may require the religious organization to conduct its distribution, sales, and solicitation activities only from an assigned booth location at the state fair.24
Related opinions on this issue
Joined by Justice Marshall And Justice Stevens
Justice Brennan concurs in the judgment upholding Rule 6.05 as applied to sales and solicitation of funds.25 He concludes that the state has a significant interest in protecting fairgoers from fraudulent or deceptive solicitation practices. That interest is substantially furthered by restricting those activities to fixed booth locations. The state has the greatest opportunity to police and prevent possible deceptive practices at those locations. Justice Brennan dissents from the approval of the rule as applied to distribution of literature.26
He concludes that the booth rule is an overly intrusive means of achieving the state's interest in crowd control. The record contains no evidence that permitting peripatetic distribution of literature would create additional disorder. The disorder already exists due to the robust and unrestrained participation of hundreds of thousands of wandering fairgoers. Those fairgoers are already free to make speeches and engage in face-to-face proselytizing. The state failed to show that less restrictive alternatives would not adequately serve its interests. Such alternatives include prohibiting distribution at entrances and exits or limiting the number of distributors. Those measures would avoid unnecessarily interfering with First Amendment freedoms.
Justice Blackmun concurs in the result that Rule 6.05 is constitutional as applied to the sale of literature and the solicitation of funds. He reaches that conclusion by a different route than Justice Brennan. He is not persuaded that the state's interest in protecting fairgoers from fraudulent solicitation or sales practices justifies the restrictions under the Court's precedents. The same considerations that apply to door-to-door solicitations would apply at the fair. Justice Blackmun dissents as to distribution of literature for the reasons stated by Justice Brennan.27
He concludes that common-sense differences between literature distribution and solicitation or sales suggest that the latter activities present greater crowd control problems. Sales and the collection of funds require the fairgoer to stop. They involve acts of exchanging articles for money, fumbling for and dropping money, and making change. Literature distribution does not require the recipient to stop. It may present even fewer problems than the oral proselytizing that the state already allows on the fairgrounds.