428
Opinion of the Court
property, as long as this avenue of communication remains open, these devices continue to play a significant role in the dissemination of protected speech.
In the absence of some basis for distinguishing between "newspapers" and "commercial handbills" that is relevant to an interest asserted by the city, we are unwilling to recognize Cincinnati's bare assertion that the "low value" of commercial speech is a sufficient justification for its selective and categorical ban on newsracks dispensing "commercial handbills." Our holding, however, is narrow. As should be clear from the above discussion, we do not reach the question whether, given certain facts and under certain circumstances, a community might be able to justify differential treatment of commercial and noncommercial newsracks. We simply hold that on this record Cincinnati has failed to make such a showing. Because the distinction Cincinnati has drawn has absolutely no bearing on the interests it has asserted, we have no difficulty concluding, as did the two courts below, that the city has not established the "fit" between its goals and its chosen means that is required by our opinion in Fox. It remains to consider the city's argument that its prohibition is a permissible time, place, and manner regulation.
IV
The Court has held that government may impose reasonable restrictions on the time, place, or manner of engaging in protected speech provided that they are adequately justified " 'without reference to the content of the regulated speech.' " Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U. S. 781, 791 (1989), quoting Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence, 468 U. S. 288, 293 (1984). Thus, a prohibition against the use of sound trucks emitting "loud and raucous" noise in residential neighborhoods is permissible if it applies equally to music, political speech, and advertising. See gen-
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