Can a City Declare that All Pickup TrucksAre Legally Ugly? A Florida Case Tests the Limitsof Aesthetic Regulation

TL;DRAbstract

The Kuvin case illustrates the extreme breadth of the municipal power to regulate aesthetics. In most cases, municipal appearance rules are subject only to rational-basis review, "the most relaxed and tolerant form of judicial scrutiny" in equal protection claims. 10 Unless fundamental rights or suspect classes are implicated, 11 the only limitation is that the regulation's connection to a legitimate governmental purpose must not be "so attenuated as to render the distinction arbitrary or irrational." 12 But courts seldom strike down aesthetic regulations on this basis. 13 The Kuvin case also illustrates an interesting tension between two competing policy considerations: the perceived right to be free, especially in one's own home, from gratuitous government meddling in private lifestyle or economic choices, against the right of communities to choose elected officials who can respond as they see fit to their constituents' wishes without gratuitous meddling from judges. 14 These policy

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