Lorillard Tobacco Co. v. Reilly, 533 U.S. 525, 42 (2001)

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566

LORILLARD TOBACCO CO. v. REILLY

Opinion of the Court

reviewing the outdoor advertising regulations, we find the calculation in these cases insufficient for purposes of the First Amendment.

C

Massachusetts has also restricted indoor, point-of-sale advertising for smokeless tobacco and cigars. Advertising cannot be "placed lower than five feet from the floor of any retail establishment which is located within a one thousand foot radius of" any school or playground. 940 Code of Mass. Regs. §§ 21.04(5)(b), 22.06(5)(b) (2000). The District Court invalidated these provisions, concluding that the Attorney General had not provided a sufficient basis for regulating indoor advertising. 84 F. Supp. 2d, at 192-193, 195. The Court of Appeals reversed. 218 F. 3d, at 50-51. The court explained: "We do have some misgivings about the effectiveness of a restriction that is based on the assumption that minors under five feet tall will not, or will less frequently, raise their view above eye-level, but we find that such [a] determination falls within that range of reasonableness in which the Attorney General is best suited to pass judgment." Id., at 51.

We conclude that the point-of-sale advertising regulations fail both the third and fourth steps of the Central Hudson analysis. A regulation cannot be sustained if it " 'provides only ineffective or remote support for the government's purpose,' " Edenfield, 507 U. S., at 770 (quoting Central Hudson, 447 U. S., at 564), or if there is "little chance" that the restriction will advance the State's goal, Greater New Orleans, supra, at 193 (internal quotation marks omitted). As outlined above, the State's goal is to prevent minors from using tobacco products and to curb demand for that activity by limiting youth exposure to advertising. The 5-foot rule does not seem to advance that goal. Not all children are less than 5 feet tall, and those who are certainly have the ability to look up and take in their surroundings.

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