There are a number of famous examples of cities trying to condemn businesses to keep them
from moving.
The most famous recent example is the so-far abortive attempt by the city of Baltimore
to condemn the Preakness Stakes horse race to try to keep it from moving.
The Preakness Stakes horse race takes place in Baltimore, Maryland, at the Pimlico Race
Track.
It is one of the three major competitive horse races in the U.S., part of the Triple
Crown, along with the Belmont and the Kentucky Derby.
The Pimlico Race Track where the Preakness is held is decaying and it's in a bad neighborhood.
The owners of the Preakness would like to move it to a different location in Maryland.
The city of Baltimore would like them to stay.
Eminent domain is the power of the government to seize property from, uh, owners who don't
wanna sell.
If an eminent domain effort succeeds, then, uh, the government, uh, gets to take the property
even if the owners don't wanna give it away.
Uh, they do have to pay compensation, but it will be an amount set by the court, uh,
following, uh, state and federal Supreme Court precedent, uh, so it might not be an amount
that's actually acceptable to the owner.
All condemnations under the federal Constitution must be for a public use.
Some courts have ruled that holding sporting events is a public use and that, of course,
is what horse races are.
There are several constitutional issues that arise if a city tries to take a sports franchise
by eminent domain to keep it from moving.
The U.S. Supreme Court in the famous case of Kelo vs. City of New London has said that
economic development is a public use, even if the ownership of the site is gonna be in
private hands, uh, and the city's goal here is to, uh, promote the local economy.
If the city is condemning not just land or other physical property that is located within
its jurisdiction, but is also condemning intellectual property such as the franchise's name, the
right to play in a particular sports week like the NFL and so on, there is a question
often of where that property's located and whether it is within the city's jurisdiction.
So far, there has not been a successful example of a city condemning a sports team or a similar
business to keep it from moving.
The city of Baltimore back in 1984 did try to condemn the Baltimore Colts franchise and
NFL team, but the Colts almost literally left the city in the dead of night in order to
avoid being condemned, and a court ultimately ruled that because they had left, the team
was no longer within Baltimore's jurisdiction.
There is also the famous case of the city of Oakland's effort to condemn the Oakland
Raiders back in the 1980s when they tried to move to Los Angeles, and that produced
some relevant precedents from the California state courts.
They ruled that it was permissible to condemn a sports team in order to promote sports events,
but they also ruled that it was a violation of the Dormant Commerce Clause of the federal
Constitution.
The Dormant Commerce Clause is a provision of the Constitution which is said to prevent
state and local governments from interfering with intrastate commerce, things like the
movement of goods across state lines and other things of this sort.
In this case, the move would actually be within a state, but that was also true in the Oakland
Raiders case in the 1980s, which is the main precedent on this where nonetheless a court
ruled that the Dormant Commerce Clause prevents the city of Oakland from condemning the Oakland
Raiders in order to keep them from moving to Los Angeles.
In June, the city of Baltimore agreed to drop the condemnation lawsuit against the Preakness
Stakes in exchange for the owners of Preakness agreeing to negotiate to try to keep the Preakness
in Baltimore.
However, nothing has really been definitively resolved.
As yet, we don't know whether an agreement between the two sides can be reached.
This Preakness case raises broader questions of whether cities can condemn businesses.
If they can, it might place significant constraints on the mobility of business, but it also is
likely to damage those cities in the long run because, of course, businesses are unlikely
to want to invest in an area where if things go badly,
the city government will condemn them to force them to stay.