The Baltimore City Council (the "Council") enacted an ordinance in 2000 prohibiting the erection of new billboards in all zoning districts in Baltimore City. The ordinance operated as a moratorium on new, general outdoor advertising displays. "General advertising" referred to signs promoting services or events not for sale at the property where the signs were located.

In 2003, the Council passed an ordinance amending the zoning code that allowed new billboards to be erected on any publicly-owned stadium or arena (such as First Mariner Arena) as a conditional use in the B-5 zoning district in Baltimore City. Three weeks after that, the Council approved the addition (on application by Edwin F. Hale, Sr., the owner and major tenant of the First Mariner Arena) of fourteen new billboards on the exterior of three walls of the Arena as long as an equal number of billboards were taken down in other parts of Baltimore City.

Owners and individuals with interest in property in the vicinity of the First Mariner Arena challenged the Council's enactment of the ordinance in question. They initially filed a petition for judicial review, which was heard before Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Evelyn Omega Cannon. Judge Cannon rejected the petition for judicial review in August 2003 for lack of standing. Thereafter, five years of appeals over procedural issues lead to the Court of Appeals remanding the case back to Judge Cannon in early 2008. Then, in December 2008, Judge Cannon ruled in favor of Baltimore City and Mr. Hale. Judge Cannon's decision was then appealed to the Court of Special Appeals.

The Court of Special Appeals of Maryland held that the Council's ordinance was validly enacted for two reasons. First, creation by text amendment ordinance of a new conditional use in a particular zoning district in Baltimore City was in the nature of a legislative act and, therefore, was entitled to presumptive validity. The court found that the creation of a new conditional use in a particular zoning district did not have to be carried out by comprehensive rezoning. Specifically, enactment of the ordinance did not constitute illegal piecemeal zoning, spot zoning, or contract zoning.

Second, the grant of the conditional use in question to the First Mariner Arena, a quasi-judicial zoning action by the Council acting in its agency capacity, was subject to judicial review for substantial evidence on the record and for legal correctness. According to the court, the City Council's zoning action satisfied both prongs of that standard. The court wrote "[T]he conditional use could not have been granted unless it comported with the same standards applicable to all conditional uses in Baltimore City that were legislatively adopted in Baltimore City decades ago." "It is that requirement, and not a matter of timing, that removes arbitrariness and therefore, favoritism from the process."

This opinion could prove helpful in future zoning issues before the Baltimore City Council because it provides the Council with useful guidance.