ORLANDO, Fla. – A judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed last year against Orlando by several downtown bars that complained about paying for police protection, records show.

The lawsuit — which was filed last September and named the city and Orlando Police Chief Eric Smith as defendants — stems from a city ordinance in effect since May 2023 that requires certain bars to pay for police protection, part of a crackdown on crime following violence downtown in the years leading up.

Wanting a heightened police presence in the Downtown Entertainment Area (DEA), the city opted to pay for it with the “After Midnight Alcohol Sales Permit,” or AMS Permit, “which allowed businesses in the DEA to sell alcohol after midnight, provided that those businesses implement certain security measures and agree to bear the costs of the increased police presence by paying a fee,” Wednesday’s filing recounts.

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In filing the lawsuit, the plaintiffs sought monetary damages and a permanent injunction against the ordinance.

The plaintiffs claimed their Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were being violated. They alleged only 33 businesses in the DEA paid the police-protection fee despite more than 80 of them carrying an AMS Permit, claiming the city “arbitrarily allowed larger venues, including auditoriums, arenas and hotels to hold AMS Permits without hiring additional police.”

The judge on Wednesday called the plaintiffs’ complaint an impermissible shotgun pleading that failed to identify claims with sufficient clarity, the filing states.

Plaintiffs seek relief under two distinct legal theories: substantive due process and equal protection, both arising under the Fourteenth Amendment. (…) Count II thus falls into the third type of shotgun pleading by failing to separate “into a different count each cause of action or claim for relief.” Weiland, 792 F.3d at 1323. The Court could dismiss the Complaint on this ground alone.

Case: 6:24-cv-01665-WWB-NWH Document 48 filed 9/10/25 p. 5 (excerpt)

Relating to the bars’ claim that the police-protection fee was tantamount to “a regulatory taking” by local government, the judge said that an alcohol license is a privilege, ”not a property interest in Florida for the purposes of a constitutional claim.”

Further, as the plaintiffs claimed that Orlando was arbitrarily imposing the police-protection fee on their venues even while they were closed, the judge said that the argument failed because the bars questioned the “wisdom, fairness, or logic” of the city instead of a burden on commerce.

Read Wednesday’s ruling in the embedded viewer below or by clicking here.