City Council

14. 26-55810 Recommendation to direct City Manager to work with City Attorney to prepare and return to City Council an ordinance prohibiting false or misleading advertising by pregnancy services centers concerning the pregnancy-related services they provide, offer, or arrange through referrals, and to report back to City Council within 45 days. For purposes of preparing the ordinance, “pregnancy services center” should generally mean a licensed or unlicensed facility, including a mobile facility, whose primary purpose is to provide or offer pregnancy-related services or referrals to persons who are or may be pregnant. “Pregnancy-related services” may include pregnancy testing or diagnosis, obstetric ultrasounds or sonograms, prenatal care, emergency contraception, abortion care, and referrals for those services. The ordinance must apply uniformly to pregnancy services centers regardless of their mission, religious or ideological affiliation, or position concerning abortion, and should regulate only false or misleading commercial advertising concerning the services a center provides, offers, or arranges through referrals. The proposed ordinance shall consider, and incorporate to the extent allowable under the law, the following enforcement and patient-safety provisions: 1. Private Right of Action and Civil Enforcement: Evaluate and, if appropriate, establish (a) a private right of action for any individual who relied upon prohibited advertising and suffered actual harm because of a violation, and (b) authority for City Attorney to bring a civil action for injunctive relief, civil penalties, restitution, and other appropriate relief; 2. Referral Practices: Evaluate whether and to what extent a pregnancy service center’s referral practices may be considered in determining whether its advertising concerning available pregnancy-related services is false or misleading; 3. Civil Penalties: Evaluate a proportionate civil-penalty structure, not to exceed $10,000 per violation, that accounts for the nature, duration, willfulness, frequency, and consequences of the conduct and clearly defines the unit of violation; 4. Administrative Enforcement Pathway: Evaluate whether existing administrative enforcement procedures provide an appropriate and legally sufficient mechanism for addressing violations, including appropriate notice, an opportunity to cure, evidentiary standards, and judicial review. In preparing the ordinance, City Attorney is requested to advise City Council on the scope of any affirmative disclosure requirement that may be imposed on pregnancy services centers consistent with governing First Amendment authority, and to structure each provision above so as to regulate only false or misleading commercial advertising, without discriminating based on a provider’s mission, beliefs, or viewpoint. Office or Department: Tunua Thrash-Ntuk, Councilwoman, Eighth District; Roberto Uranga, Vice Mayor, Seventh District; Megan Kerr, Councilwoman, Fifth District Suggested Action: Approve recommendation.