Licensing; The Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause; Whether plaintiffs had a property interest in a vendor’s license; Detroit Code § 34-1-34(e), (f), & 34-1-35; Whether defendant-City acted “irrationally” by not renewing the licenses

[This appeal was from the ED-MI.] The court held that plaintiffs-vendors did not have a property interest in vendor licenses and thus, affirmed summary judgment for defendant-City of Detroit on their Fourteenth Amendment claims after the City refused to renew their licenses. Detroit refused to renew the licenses because plaintiffs were located within a 300-foot exclusion zone of Little Caesar’s Arena. They sued, arguing that the City violated their rights to due process and equal protection. The court first considered whether plaintiffs possessed a property interest in their licenses. It held that “[a] State’s decision to offer benefits or licenses does not create a property interest ‘if government officials may grant or deny it in their discretion.’” The court noted that under the Detroit Code, licenses are not guaranteed, and the City retained the “discretion to deny or suspend licenses to prevent a violation of the rules or to protect public safety. . . . ‘The law is clear that a party cannot have a property interest in a discretionary benefit.’” Plaintiffs argued that they had renewed their licenses in the past and expected to do so again. But the court explained that “renewals in the past do not justify expectations of renewal in the future—or, as we have put it, getting a license before does not justify ‘assuming that [the license] would be issued again.”’ However, plaintiffs were entitled to first preference of other available locations, pursuant to the Code, and the court noted that two of them received new licenses for other locations. The court also held that Detroit had a rational reason for denying the applications—preventing sidewalk congestion—and that “a 300-foot exclusion zone is ‘a rational way to correct it.’”