Cite as: 533 U. S. 525 (2001)
Opinion of Thomas, J.
strates a lack of narrow tailoring, but the problem goes deeper than that. A prohibited zone defined solely by circles drawn around schools and playgrounds is necessarily overinclusive, regardless of the radii of the circles. Consider, for example, a billboard located within 1,000 feet of a school but visible only from an elevated freeway that runs nearby. Such a billboard would not threaten any of the interests respondents assert, but it would be banned anyway, because the regulations take no account of whether the advertisement could even be seen by children. The prohibited zone is even more suspect where, as here, it includes all but 10 percent of the area in the three largest cities in the State.
The loose tailoring of the advertising ban is displayed not only in its geographic scope but also in the nature of the advertisements it affects. The regulations define "advertisement" very broadly; the term includes any "written . . . statement or representation, made by" a person who sells tobacco products, "the purpose or effect of which is to promote the use or sale of the product." 940 Code of Mass. Regs. § 21.03 (2000). Almost everything a business does has the purpose of promoting the sale of its products, so this definition would cover anything a tobacco retailer might say. Some of the prohibited speech would not even be commercial. If a store displayed a sign promoting a candidate for Attorney General who had promised to repeal the tobacco regulations if elected, it probably would be doing so with the long-term purpose of promoting sales, and the display of such a sign would be illegal.
Even if the definition of "advertisement" were read more narrowly so as to require a specific reference to tobacco products, it still would have Draconian effects. It would, for example, prohibit a tobacconist from displaying a sign reading "Joe's Cigar Shop." The effect of this rule is not to make cigars impossible to find; retailers are after all allowed to display a 576-square-inch black-and-white sign reading "Tobacco Products Sold Here." § 22.06(6). Rather, it is to
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