Here, the ACLU represented appellants Cohen, a taxpayer in San Francisco, and Low, an attorney practicing in San Francisco, who challenged a recently-enacted city ordinance designed to regulate escort services in the city. The ordinance imposes a permit or license requirement upon escort services, which both the Mayor of San Francisco and the city's Chief of Police claim are usually "fronts for prostitution." An “escort service” is “[a]ny business, agency or person who, for a fee, commission, hire, reward or profit, furnishes or offers to furnish names of persons, or who may accompany other persons to or about social affairs, entertainments or places of amusement, or who may consort with others about any place of public resort or within any private quarters.” The ordinance also stipulates that both clients and employees must be at least 18 years of age, and that all escort services must keep a register "containing the identity of all employees and the 'true' identity, address, hours of employment, including location and place, of each patron.   This register is then 'subject to inspection' by the police and health departments.

The issues raised by the appellants concern the constitutionality of the ordinance, and whether it violates the First, Fourth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amemdments. They also question whether the ordinance violates the right to privacy guaranteed under article 1, section 1 of the California Constitution, and wonder whether the ordinance is preempted by state law.

In considering this case, the court writes, "It is also well-settled that this state has adopted a general scheme for the regulation of the criminal aspects of sexual conduct, and thus, the state has occupied that field to the exclusion of all local regulation." They also write that "the ordinance in the present case is clearly one that 'was designed and is enforced as a law against prostitution where prostitution is difficult to prove.' The ordinance, they argue, is not simply designed to regulate businesses within its jurisdiction, but implicitly expands the reach of police investigative powers. They also write: "This local ordinance undermines the statewide uniformity of the statutory regulation of sexual conduct.   Such action at the local level leads to uncertainty and confusion.   We therefore hold the ordinance void."