Golden Gateway Center v.

Golden
Gateway Tenants Assʼn.: Large
Apartment Complexes Are Not
Constitutionally-Protected Public
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In Golden Gateway Center v. Golden Gateway Tenants Association,
Californiaʼs Court of Appeal, First District, determined that constitutional
free speech guarantees do not extend to the activities of a tenantʼs
association in a large apartment complex.

Golden Gateway Center (“Landlord”) is an approximately 1200-unit

complex composed of townhouses and high-rise apartment buildings. The
Landlord emphasized security and privacy for its tenants. As one means to
accomplish this, the Landlord established a policy prohibiting door-to-door
solicitations and leafleting within the complex, except in designated areas.
This policy was referenced in every lease.

The Golden Gateway Center tenants formed an association (“Association”).

The Association distributed its newsletter by sliding it under tenantʼs doors.
The Landlord filed suit, seeking to stop these activities, claiming the
Association was violating its antisolicitation policies. The trial court ruled in
the Associationʼs favor.

On appeal, the Association argued that its activities were constitutionally

protected. The Association argued that a large apartment complex is a
public forum, and the court should extend constitutional protections to the
Associationʼs activities just like the California Supreme Court did when it
determined that a shopping center was a modern day public forum (see
Editorʼs Note below). The California Supreme Court found that a shopping
center was the modern equivalent of a communityʼs central business
district because thousands of people passed through each daily. Since
shopping center owners invite the general public into the centers, private
ownership did not prevent the court from holding that shopping centers
were public forums. The Association argued that the court should extend
this analogy to a large apartment complex and find that the Associationʼs
activities were constitutionally protected speech.

The court rejected the Associationʼs arguments and ruled that that
constitutional free speech guarantees do not apply to large residential
apartment complex tenants. There was no dispute that the only the free
speech guarantees at issue were those in the California Constitution, not
those contained in the United States Constitution. The court stated that the
analogy to a public forum was inapplicable here, because the apartment
complex did not allow the general public access to its property. The
Landlord employed security guards and doormen to limit public access to
its property. Indeed, the Landlordʼs emphasis on privacy and security for its
tenants was made clear to each tenant in the lease. Therefore, the court
reversed the trial court and instructed it to enter an order an order
prohibiting further solicitations by the Association.

Golden Gateway Center v. Golden Gateway Tenants Assʼn., 73 Cal. App. 4th
908, 87 Cal. Reptr. 2d 22 (Cal. Ct. App. 1999), superseded by, 989 P.2d
645 (Cal. 1999), aff'd, 29 P.3d 797 (Cal. 2001).

Note: The California Supreme Court first applied the public forum doctrine
to shopping malls in Robins v. Pruneyard Shopping Center, 23 Cal. 3d 899,
592 P.2d 341, 153 Cal. Reptr. 854 (Cal. 1979), aff'd, 447 U.S. 74 (1980). In
Pruneyard, the court established that free speech activities were protected
in shopping centers, and the only restrictions that mall owners could
impose upon these activities were for “objectively reasonable” and
“narrowly tailored” time, place, and manner restrictions. Recently, a New
Jersey appellate court rejected the Pruneyard-like test adopted in New
Jersey. See The Green Party of New Jersey v. Hartz Mountain Indus., Inc.,
324 N.J. Super. 192, 735 A. 2d 9 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 1999). In its
place, the New Jersey court found that mall owners could impose
restrictions that were designed to protect business interests and were
neutral towards particular speakers or forms of speech. Under the New
Jersey test, mall owners do not have to demonstrate that the restrictions
are narrowly tailored or objectively reasonable; instead, the owners merely
have to show that the restrictions are neutral and intended to protect the
ownerʼs business.