538
Opinion of the Court
In a separate ruling, the District Court considered the claim that the Attorney General's regulations violate the First Amendment. 84 F. Supp. 2d, at 183-196. Rejecting petitioners' argument that strict scrutiny should apply, the court applied the four-part test of Central Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Public Serv. Comm'n of N. Y., 447 U. S. 557 (1980), for commercial speech. The court reasoned that the Attorney General had provided an adequate basis for regulating cigars and smokeless tobacco as well as cigarettes because of the similarities among the products. The court held that the outdoor advertising regulations, which prohibit outdoor advertising within 1,000 feet of a school or playground, do not violate the First Amendment because they advance a substantial government interest and are narrowly tailored to suppress no more speech than necessary. The court concluded that the sales practices regulations, which restrict the location and distribution of tobacco products, survive scrutiny because they do not implicate a significant speech interest. The court invalidated the point-of-sale advertising regulations, which require that indoor advertising be placed no lower than five feet from the floor, finding that the Attorney General had not provided sufficient justification for that restriction. The District Court's ruling with respect to the cigar warning requirements and the Commerce Clause is not before this Court.
The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit issued a stay pending appeal, App. 8-9, and affirmed in part and reversed in part the District Court's judgment, Consolidated Cigar Corp. v. Reilly, 218 F. 3d 30 (2000). With respect to the Supremacy Clause, the Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's ruling that the Attorney General's cigarette advertising regulations are not preempted by the FCLAA. The First Circuit was persuaded by the reasoning of the Second and Seventh Circuits, which had concluded that the FCLAA's pre-emption provision is ambiguous, and held that the provision pre-empts regula-
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