Discount Inn, Inc. v. City of Chicago, No. 14-3678 (7th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseChicago’s Department of Administrative Hearings determined that Discount Inn had violated city ordinances, providing that “any person who owns or controls property within the city must cut or otherwise control all weeds on such property so that the average height of such weeds does not exceed ten inches” and that “it shall be the duty of the owner of any open lot ... to cause the lot to be surrounded with a noncombustible screen fence … . P. The owner shall maintain any such fence in a safe condition." Both ordinances provide for fines. The Seventh Circuit affirmed dismissal of constitutional challenges to the ordinances.The fencing of vacant lots is important to enable the identification of such land as being owned rather than abandoned, and to discourage squatters and the use of vacant lots as sites for the sale of illegal drugs. While expressing concern about the lack of a definition of “weed” and enforcement of the average height limit, the court stated that taken to its logical extreme, Discount Inn’s defense of the weed would preclude any efforts by local governments to prevent unsightly or dangerous uses of private property.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.