Ordinance Requiring Hotels to Make Registry Available to Police Officers on Demand Facially Unconstitutional

In City of Los Angeles v. Patel, published June 22, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, that the portion of a City of Los Angeles ordinance that requires hotel operators to make their guest registry available to police officers on demand is facially unconstitutional because it violates the 4th Amendment's limitations on searches and seizures.  The court first ruled that facial attacks for violation of the 4th Amendment are permitted.  Applying that rule to the ordinance, the court concluded that the production requirement violated the 4th amendment because even if construed as an "administrative search" to enforce the ordinance's requirement that identifying information about hotel guests be recorded, rather than a law-enforcement search that requires a warrant, the 4th Amendment requires at the least some opportunity for pre-compliance review before a neutral decisionmaker.  A requirement for an administrative subpoena (with the opportunity to move to quash the subpoena before an administrative law judge) would suffice.  Otherwise, the production requirement could be subject to abuse.