Brewvies Cinema Pub will hold a free film festival to celebrate Thursday’s federal court decision, one that allows the Salt Lake City business to serve alcohol during R-rated movies without fear of reprisal from the state.
The Freedom Film Series will include all the R-rated movies that the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (DABC) claimed violated state law. The details will be announced today during a 2 p.m. news conference at the theater, 677 S. 200 West, but the lineup will likely include the blockbuster superhero movie “Deadpool,” which sparked the federal lawsuit last year.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge David Nuffer ruled that a section of a state law, barring alcohol from being served during R-rated movies in which characters are shown having sex while nude, hampered free speech and was unconstitutional.
The Brewvies case began in early 2016, when officers from the State Bureau of Investigation cited the business for serving alcohol during screenings of “Deadpool.” Because it was not the first time the theater — for adults 21 and older — had been ticketed, it faced a stiffer fine of $25,000 and a potential 10-day revocation of its liquor license.
Brewvies filed a federal lawsuit contending the film is protected by the First Amendment. While the case worked its way through the system, Brewvies has been allowed to show R-rated movies as “long as they are not obscene,” said the theater‘s attorney, Rocky Anderson.
While Brewvies celebrates, Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes and his staff are deciding their next move, said spokesman Dan Burton.
“We are reviewing the case and considering our options,” he said. A decision to “appeal or not appeal will come out of that review” and whether “we think think the judge got it right or wrong. ”
Gov. Gary Herbert and lawyers with the Attorney General’s Office previously said the ban is not an infringement of free speech, but rather an attempt to preserve public decency.
DABC spokesman Terry Wood said the department has no comment on the decision and is “awaiting further guidance from the Attorney General‘s Office.”
Anderson said he believes the state should stop spending money on the legal battle. “Utah has wasted hundreds of thousand of dollars defending these cases. What is even worse, they trample on the rights of everybody in the state and everyone who visits the state.”
In his ruling, Nuffer wrote that the state may have compelling interests to avoid ”potential negative secondary effects” from mixing sexual content and alcohol. But the state’s enforcement mechanism, which it used against Brewvies, was ”not the least restrictive means for accomplishing” its goals under the First Amendment.
Nuffer also noted that Brewvies was not an obscene, ”sexually oriented” theater — it shows mainstream movies that play in many other American theaters.
“The state cannot argue that it has plenary power to control liquor licensing under the 21st Amendment, to the point of obliterating First Amendment rights,” Nuffer wrote in the ruling.
The Tribune will continue to update this story.