Item 285/2025
Final
City of Garden Grove
INTER-DEPARTMENT MEMORANDUM
To:
Lisa L. Kim From: Omar Sandoval
Dept:
City Manager Dept: City Attorney
Date: 8/12/2025
Subject: Introduction and First Reading of an Ordinance amending Chapter 8.02 of the Municipal Code to prohibit outdoor advertising of alcoholic beverages near schools, parks, and areas frequented by children, entitled:
AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF GARDEN GROVE AMENDING CHAPTER 8.02 OF TITLE 8, OF THE GARDEN GROVE MUNICIPAL CODE, REVISING ITS TITLE AND ADDING SECTION 8.020.020 FOR THE
PURPOSE OF RESTRICTING OUTDOOR ADVERTISING OF ALCOHOLIC
BEVERAGES NEAR SCHOOLS, PARKS, AND OTHER AREAS FREQUENTED BY CHILDREN. (Action Item)
OBJECTIVE
For the City Council to introduce an ordinance prohibiting the outdoor advertising of alcoholic beverages near schools, parks, and other areas frequented by children.
BACKGROUND
Following an event where an alcoholic beverage company painted a mural across from an elementary school advertising their alcoholic products, at the request of Councilmember Muñetón, the City Council authorized the City Attorney to prepare an ordinance to prohibit the outdoor advertising of alcoholic beverages near schools, parks, and other areas frequented by children.
DISCUSSION
Numerous studies, including those conducted and reported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, have shown that greater exposure of children to signage promoting the consumption of alcohol leads to greater incidence of underage drinking and accelerates the onset and frequency of alcohol use among adolescen ts. Underage drinking negatively impacts youth and the community overall by contributing to higher levels of accidents and injuries, impaired judgment, interference with brain development, increased risk of interpersonal violence, Item 285/2025
academic and behavioral problems in school, and higher rates of future illicit drug use and alcoholism.
Although advertising displays are a form of speech, commercial speech regulation is subject to lesser scrutiny by the courts than noncommercial speech. Courts have further he ld that commercial speech that proposes an unlawful transaction or is misleading or related to unlawful activity is excluded from First Amendment protection and may be freely regulated by the government . Underage drinking is illegal, and the City Council has a substantial interest protecting minors from illegal activity.
The attached ordinance amends Chapter 8.02 of the Garden Grove Municipal Code, which currently prohibits commercial advertisements for unlawful activities in general to rename the chapter, continue to prohibit commercial advertisements for unlawful activities and uses, and to add a new section to specifically restrict the advertising of alcoholic beverages to youth.
The new regulations will prohibit any advertising of alcoholic beverages on a sign, billboard, or display that is within 500 feet of a school, playground, recreation center or facility, child care center, or library , or that is more than 500 feet and the display face and its advertisement are clearly visible from a school, playground, recreation center or facility, child care center, or library.
RECOMMENDATION
It is recommended that the City Council:
Introduce and conduct the first reading of the ordinance amending Chapter
8.02 of the Garden Grove Municipal Code prohibiting t he outdoor advertising of alcoholic beverages near schools, parks, and areas frequented by children, and pass it to second reading and adoption.
ATTACHMENT(S)
1. Studies linking alcohol advertising to negative outcomes in youth
2. Draft Ordinance