The city officials argued that the city’s zoning laws prohibit an adult business from operating in the residential neighbourhood in which the dorm is based. The laws were intended to apply to adult cinemas or bookshops.
The case questioned whether or not the laws could be applied to a property that was used “to distribute video.” The court said that the rules “cannot be applied to a location that does not, itself, offer adult entertainment to the public.”
Lawyers for Entertainment Network, the owner of the site, said in a statement:
"We are very pleased the court was able to step over the salacious obstacles the City of Tampa threw up over this case and that the justices looked instead at the important First Amendment issues instead of heeding arguments about sexual expression. This is a major victory not just for people involved in web sites dealing with sexual imagery, but also for anybody who uses the internet to conduct business."