The ACLU represents here Alternatives for California Women (ACW), which is a "a non-profit California corporation formed to promote the social welfare by supporting issues and activities that provide residential, employment, therapeutic, legal and medical alternatives for battered women and their children.” This case concerns a city ordinance which, in 1978, prohibited "soliciting" between the hours of 7 pm and 8 am. ACW, which was attempting to distribute information about its services as well as solicit donations through door-to-door canvassing, challenged the constitutionality of this ordinance. The ordinance was amended to include the language "between sunset and sunrise," and the case considered the ordinance as amended.

Their grounds for challenging the ordinance are as follows: 1. that the ordinance is unconstitutional because it delineates a "content-based descrimination between categories of speech" by distinguishing between categories of speech which merely convey information, and categories of speech which both convey information and request or solicit funds, and 2. that the ordinance infringes on the First Amendments rights of residents to receive communications from ACW. The court agreed on both counts, declaring the ordinance unconstitutional.