with whom CUDAHY, Circuit Judge, joins, concurring.
I concur in the judgment of the majority but write separately to emphasize my belief that the erection and maintenance of newspaper stands qualifies as “conduct commonly associated with expression.” City of Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publishing Co., 486 U.S. 750, 759, 108 S.Ct. 2138, 2145, 100 L.Ed.2d 771 (1988). Accordingly, Chicago’s licensing ordinance (hereinafter “the Ordinance”) implicates the First Amendment’s protection of expression, see id. at 769, 108 S.Ct. at 2150, and a facial challenge against it lies if the Ordinance carries with it significant risks of self-censorship and of post-decision difficulty in detecting whether censorship motives clandestinely prompted license denials, see id. at 759, 108 S.Ct. at 2145. Because Chicago’s scheme at the outset establishes a discretionary system to govern the issuance of permits, the specter of these risks looms and a facial review of the ordinance is in order. Scrutiny of the Ordinance’s provisions, however, reveals that the danger of content-based censorship presented by such licensing schemes is in this ease sufficiently mitigated to allow the Ordinance to survive facial attack. In addition, I do not feel that the Ordinance is the kind of scheme for which the lack of a special provision for prompt judicial review is fatal.1
I.
I respectfully suggest that the majority misses the mark in asserting that “[t]his case neither concerns simply the circulation and printing of newspapers nor conduct commonly associated with expression.” Ante, at 1316. Like newsracks, newsstands are in the business of circulating expressive materials. See City of Lakewood, 486 U.S. at 768, 108 S.Ct. at 2149. That they do so on a larger scale, with greater variety2 and take up *1328more physical space in performing their distributive function does not alter the fundamental fact that maintaining a newsstand, just like maintaining a newsrack, is an activity peculiarly linked to expression. In that respect a newsstand is not like a candy machine or a hot dog stand or any other mere “structure.” See id. at 760-61, 108 S.Ct. at 2145-46. A newsstand is an instrument for the dissemination of expressive materials, and as such it falls within that special category of activities whose regulation implicates First Amendment values.
Since this licensing scheme is “directed narrowly and specifically at ... conduct commonly associated with expression,” id. at 760, 108 S.Ct. at 2145, a facial challenge is an appropriate means to test for constitutional infirmity when by its nature the scheme does not foreclose the “identifiable risks to free expression,” id. at 757,108 S.Ct. at 2144, that a system of prior restraint engenders and that can be “effectively alleviated only through a facial challenge.” Id. Now the Ordinance does not fit the traditional mold of a prior restraint since it does not directly regulate speech qua speech. See, e.g., Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, 420 U.S. 546, 552, 95 S.Ct. 1239, 1243, 43 L.Ed.2d 448 (1975) (city preventing performance of rock musical “Hair”); Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, 394 U.S. 147, 150-52, 89 S.Ct. 935, 938-39, 22 L.Ed.2d 162 (1969) (city requiring permit to conduct a parade); Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U.S. 51, 57, 85 S.Ct. 734, 738, 13 L.Ed.2d 649 (1965) (movie censorship system); Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697, 713-17, 51 S.Ct. 625, 630-31, 75 L.Ed. 1357 (1931) (newspaper censorship). Rather, it is one aspect of Chicago’s effort to keep within reasonable bounds businesses’ usage of the public ways. See Chicago Mun.Code § 4-384-060 (establishing discretionary licensing of sidewalk cafes based on considerations of pedestrian flow, building access, safety and aesthetics). But by targeting for licensing a business inextricably connected to the exercise of First Amendment freedoms, Chicago’s scheme raises the possibility of those identifiable risks that we commonly associate with prior restraints.
Firstly, just as the licensure of newsracks can chill a newspaper’s zest to pursue issues and opinions displeasing to the licensor, see City of Lakewood, 486 U.S. at 757-58, 108 S.Ct. at 2144-45, licensure of newsstands has the potential to prompt vendors to spurn publications offensive to the licensor's (or his constituents’) sensibilities and politics. Only a facial challenge adequately addresses such a risk. Secondly, discretionary licensing schemes frequently provide fertile ground for “post hoc rationalizations by the licensing official ..., making it difficult for courts to determine in any particular case whether the licensor is permitting favorable, and suppressing unfavorable, expression.” Id. at 758, 108 S.Ct. at 2145. In an “as applied” challenge, an unsuccessful applicant for a discretionary newsstand permit would face the same kind of struggle in demonstrating that his rejection was motivated by which publications he sells as a disappointed newspaper would in showing it lost its newsrack because of what it writes. The Ordinance sets out what is basically a discretionary system of licensing, the sort of system in which such risks can lurk, and appellants have alleged that under it city officials “enjoy unfettered discretion to deny ... permits altogether.” Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781, 794, 109 S.Ct. 2746, 2755, 105 L.Ed.2d 661 (1989). “Thus, waiting for an alleged abuse before considering ... a challenge would achieve nothing except ... to *1329risk censorship of free expression during the interim.” Id. 486 U.S. at 770 n. 11,108 S.Ct. at 2161 n. 11. Therefore, I feel it is appropriate to examine under the lens of a facial challenge whether the Ordinance is characterized by standards and other features adequate to rein in the exercise of discretion and minimize the risk of content discrimination. See Freedman, 380 U.S. at 56-57, 85 S.Ct. at 738 (“Although we have no occasion to decide whether the vice of overbroadness infects the ... statute, we think that appellant’s assertion of a similar danger in the ... apparatus of censorship — one always fraught with danger and viewed with suspicion — gives him standing to make that challenge.”).
II.
Turning to the details of the Ordinance, none of the six factors upon which the Commissioner of Public Works’ permit decisions are based facially vest him with unbridled discretion in accepting and rejecting applicants.3 Thus, the Ordinance does not grant to city officials the sort of standardless carte blanche that the Supreme Court has unfailingly condemned. See, e.g., Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, 394 U.S. 147, 89 S.Ct. 935, 22 L.Ed.2d 162 (1969), Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U.S. 51, 85 S.Ct. 734, 13 L.Ed.2d 649 (1965), Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 88, 60 S.Ct. 736, 84 L.Ed. 1093 (1940). I do recognize that some of the enumerated factors, as well as having a scheme where six are weighed in combination, allow a measure of flex. We must remember, however, that “perfect clarity and precise guidance have never been required even of regulations that restrict expressive activity,” Ward, 491 U.S. at 793, 109 S.Ct. at 2755, and these are after all the kinds of legitimate concerns one would expect a city to weigh when deciding how to allocate limited public space in a neutral way. Moreover, these criteria provide definite and finite guidelines against which the Commissioner’s written reasons for a denial, see Chicago Mun.Code § 10-28-160(c), can be measured and comparisons made from case to case — a safeguard that the standardless system in Lakewood lacked. See Lakewood, 486 U.S. at 771, 108 S.Ct. at 2151.
In spite of the presence of these exclusive factors, their residual malleability may still have proven unacceptable had the ordinance been written to apply them to permit renewal and not just the initial decision to issue. The fact that the full range of discretionary criteria does not apply to renewal — renewals are automatic so long as existing newsstands are in compliance with the City Code, see Chicago Mun.Code 10-28-160(b) — indicates to me that the Ordinance neither was intended to promote nor in fact dangerously facilitates content discrimination in the licensing of newsstands. One of the distressing features of the newsrack ordinance in Lakewood was the need to annually reapply for licenses. This periodic requirement enabled the li-censor to routinely discipline newspapers for speech already uttered. See Lakewood, 486 U.S. at 759-60, 108 S.Ct. at 2145-46. In the context of newsstands such a system would allow the licensor to monitor the type of publications offered for sale, effectively presenting the more “direct ... threat to speech [of] allowing a licensor to view the actual content of the speech to be licensed.” Id. at 760, 108 S.Ct. at 2146. Then, under the cloak of discretionary decision making, the licensor could easily reject a renewal application because he disapproves of what the stand sells. Chicago’s pro forma renewal process, by contrast, does not afford that kind of opportunity for ongoing censorship. *1330On application for renewal, the discrete question of compliance with the Code replaces the discretion of the initial permit decision. Furthermore, first time applicants, who are subject to the full discretionary process, do not provide in their application a list of publications that they intend to sell. Therefore, overall, Chicago’s mechanism offers few routes by which content motives can obliquely infiltrate the permit process.
III.
Seemingly the most difficult feature of the Ordinance, in light of Supreme Court precedent, is the absence of any provision for expeditious judicial review of the Commissioner’s decision. However, I believe that because the Ordinance does not involve separating protected from unprotected speech and by its own terms presents little risk of facilitating content discrimination, it can survive constitutional attack despite the lack of a self-contained provision for prompt judicial review.
A.
Since the Supreme Court’s decision in Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U.S. 51, 85 S.Ct. 734, 13 L.Ed.2d 649 (1965), it has become accepted practice to examine licensing schemes that regulate speech related activities for the presence of three procedural safeguards: 1) the administrative decision allowing or forbidding the speech must be forthcoming within a short and fixed time; 2) prompt judicial review of a license denial must be available; and 3) the licensor must bear both the burden of going to court and the burden of proof in court. See id. at 58-59, 85 S.Ct. at 738-39. The only possible modification to the Freedman requirements may have been anticipated in FW/PBS, Inc. v. Dallas, 493 U.S. 215, 110 S.Ct. 596, 107 L.Ed.2d 603 (1990), where three Justices asserted that a city licensing scheme aimed at the operation of sexually oriented businesses need not include the third Freedman safeguard.4 See id. 493 U.S. at 229, 110 S.Ct. at 607.
I do not doubt that the Ordinance satisfies the first requirement of rapid and certain administrative action. The Commissioner must make decisions between 35 and 65 days after filing for first time applications and within 10 days for renewal applications. See Chicago Mun.Code 10-28-160(c). The longer period is not an unreasonable start-up delay for a new business and can be accounted for by sound planning, and the shorter period both is brief and more importantly, if timely commenced, does not have to interrupt the operation of an existing newsstand. Further, after FW/PBS, it seems likely that Freedman’s third requirement — that the licensor bear all court-related burdens — does not apply in this case. Chicago’s ordinance is not designed to distinguish between protected and unprotected speech, and, like Dallas’ ordinance in FW/PBS, it sets out a prerequisite to maintaining whole businesses, thus creating strong incentives to challenge adverse decisions. See supra note 4.
B.
While Freedman’s first and third requirements are obstacles which the ordinance can clear, the second requirement plainly is not. Simply no provision is made for prompt judicial review. The majority tries to finesse *1331this shortcoming by suggesting that the common law writ of certiorari stands as an adequate substitute for an explicit system of swift judicial review set out in the licensing law. Professing confusion about the rationale behind the Supreme Court’s insistence on prompt review, the majority glosses over both that there is no indication in the record that Illinois’ writ of certiorari is any quicker a judicial process than other common law actions and that review of administrative findings of fact is highly deferential in Illinois on certiorari. See Norton v. Nicholson, 187 Ill.App.3d 1046, 135 Ill.Dec. 485, 491, 543 N.E.2d 1053, 1059 (1989), appeal denied, 129 Ill.2d 565, 140 Ill.Dec. 673, 550 N.E.2d 558, cert. denied, 496 U.S. 938, 110 S.Ct. 3217, 110 L.Ed.2d 665 (1990). This is clearly not the sort of review Freedman envisioned. That Court was explicit about its concerns and holding:
[Bjecause only a judicial determination in an adversary proceeding assures the necessary sensitivity to freedom of expression, only a procedure requiring a judicial determination suffices to impose a valid prior restraint.... Any restraint imposed in advance of a final judicial determination on the merits must similarly be limited to preservation of the status quo for the shortest fixed period compatible with sound judicial resolution.... [A]n administrative refusal to license, signifying the censor’s view that the film is unprotected, may have a discouraging effect on the exhibitor. Therefore, the procedure must also assure a prompt final judicial decision, to minimize the deterrent effect of an interim and possibly erroneous denial of a license.
Freedman, 380 U.S. at 58-59, 85 S.Ct. at 738-39 (citations omitted). In FW/PBS, Justice O’Connor reemphasized that judicial review must be promptly forthcoming “so as to minimize the suppression of the speech in the event of a license denial.” FW/PBS, 493 U.S. at 229, 110 S.Ct. at 606. This idea that speech delayed is speech denied and the recognition that “the censor’s business is to censor,” Freedman, 380 U.S. at 57, 85 S.Ct. at 738, underlie Freedman’s clear demand for a specialized system of prompt judicial review on the merits. And if Freedman were to apply to this case, there can be little doubt that the Ordinance must fall.
However, I believe that a close look at the holding and rationale of Freedman shows that it does not apply here of its own force. Moreover, uncritically extending Freedman’s reach to strike down the Ordinance for lack of judicial review, by attributing broad significance to language in later cases that dealt with schemes substantially dissimilar from the one at issue here, would embark us upon a senseless departure from the core logic undergirding the holdings in Freedman and its progeny; for neither the purpose nor effect of the Ordinance, unlike the laws challenged in that line of cases, is to involve the licensor in any decisionmaking of constitutional proportion.
Freedman and its immediate offspring involved various administrative attempts to ban obscene materials. Typically, bodies were set up to cull through the contents of expressive materials to decide whether or not to permit dissemination. If an administrative finding of obscenity or the like was made, a license would not issue, and the material could not legally be promulgated in the desired forum. See Freedman, 380 U.S. at 521 n. 2, 85 S.Ct. at 736 n. 2 (Board of Censors approving films which are “moral and proper” and disapproving those which are “obscene, or ... tend ... to debase or corrupt moral or incite to crimes”); Teitel Film Corp. v. Cusack, 390 U.S. 139, 140, 88 S.Ct. 754, 755, 19 L.Ed.2d 966 (1968) (per curiam) (licensing system examining films for obscenity); Blount v. Rizzi, 400 U.S. 410, 411-14, 91 S.Ct. 423, 425-27, 27 L.Ed.2d 498 (1971) (postal censorship scheme inspecting mails for obscenity); United States v. Thirtyseven Photographs, 402 U.S. 363, 365-66, 91 S.Ct. 1400, 1402-03, 28 L.Ed.2d 822 (1971) (custom agents confiscating imported obscene materials); Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, 420 U.S. 546, 548, 95 S.Ct. 1239,1241, 43 L.Ed.2d 448 (municipal theater directors rejecting performance of “Hair” believing show was obscene and thus not “in the best interest of the community”); cf. Vance v. Universal Amusement Co., 445 U.S. 308, 316 & n. 14, 100 S.Ct. 1156, 1161 & n. 14 (1980) (per curiam) (state law authorizing *1332state judges to enter temporary restraining orders and injunctions of indefinite duration against motion pictures without a final adjudication of obscenity).
Several themes emerged from the post-Freedman cases with regard to the necessity for procedural safeguards. The first, initially dominant theme permeated Freedman itself. There the Court’s concerns focused on the institutional tendency of censorship boards to overcensor. “Because the censor’s business is to censor, there inheres the danger that he may well be less responsive than a court— part of an independent branch of government — to the constitutionally protected interests in free expression.” Freedman, 380 U.S. at 57-58, 85 S.Ct. at 738-39. Prompt judicial review and other procedural requirements were required to ameliorate the unacceptable risk of undue suppression of speech. See id. at 58, 85 S.Ct. at 738.5 This distrust of anything short of a full-blown judicial determination of the protected character of speech carried through the cases that followed6 and together with the general distaste for unnecessary delay of speech under-laid the continuing insistence on prompt judicial review.
A second, and somewhat different, theme can be gleaned from the two most recent cases invoking Freedman. These cases did not involve licensing laws under which administrative officials were overtly charged with making decisions of constitutional dimension. In Riley v. National Federation of the Blind of North Carolina, 487 U.S. 781, 108 S.Ct. 2667, 101 L.Ed.2d 669 (1988), the Supreme Court examined a Maryland requirement that professional fundraisers be licensed before conducting charitable solicitations. The law did not purport to pass judgment on the expressive content of anticipated solicitation, but neither did it set a time limit within which the licensor was required to decide upon permit requests. See id. at 802, 108 S.Ct. at 2680. Because of the possibility of indefinite delay, nothing “effectively eon-strain[ed] the licensor’s discretion,” and the statute was struck down for lack of procedural safeguards. Id. FW/PBS also involved an administrative provision requiring that those who wished to engage in a particular line of business — in this case maintaining adult entertainment establishments — procure a special license. Here too “[the] regulatory scheme allow[ed] indefinite postponement of the issuance of a license.” FW/PBS, 493 U.S. at 227, 110 S.Ct. at 606. Expanding on what was intimated by the Riley Court, Justice O’Connor’s opinion7 pointed out that granting a licensor unlimited time to issue a license and vesting him with broad discretion in making the decision to issue are really two sides of the same coin: <cWhere the licensor has unlimited time within which to issue a license, the risk of arbitrary suppression is as great as the provision of unbridled discretion.” Id. at 227, 110 S.Ct. at 605.
The common danger posed by licensors not anchored by either standards or time constraints is the opportunity for the content based suppression of speech. See Lakewood, 486 U.S. at 763-64, 108 S.Ct. at 2147-48. By manipulating loose standards or by delaying action, a licensor can suppress speech of which he disapproves. This grave risk, see R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, — U.S. —, —, 112 S.Ct. 2538, 2543-44, 120 L.Ed.2d 305 (1992), was presented by the non-time restricted processes in both Riley and FW/PBS and could be adequately abated *1333only by the availability of prompt judicial review.
I believe that these cases indicate that the judgments we wisely do not trust to administrative officials without the benefit of a watchful judicial eye are those judgments that are made or are likely to be made in the First Amendment plane. Cf. Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, 475 U.S. 292, 309, 106 S.Ct. at 1077 (1986) (reasoning that because “the agency shop itself impinges on the nonunion employees’ First Amendment interests,” a “reasonably prompt decision by an impartial decisionmaker” as to the appropriateness of mandatory contributions to a collective bargaining agent is necessary). Determinations of what is protected speech and determinations likely to be made according to one person’s view of what is favored speech involve those sorts of judgments. As a corollary, then, schemes that abjure such judgments — unlike those in Riley and FW/ PBS — should not be required to include a Freedman system of judicial review. Cf. Hudson, 475 U.S. at 307 n. 20, 106 S.Ct. at 1076 n. 20 (suggesting that Freedman procedures are not necessary in all situations involving First Amendment materials). Clearly included among such nonthreatening schemes are those that only ask and allow administrators to make the kind of determinations for which they are especially suited; e.g. questions about city aesthetics, traffic flow or City Code violations.
Certainly, the Ordinance is in that category of innocuous schemes which a specially mandated judicial review mechanism would only hamper through inappropriate and inefficient second-guessing of legitimate administrative decisions. As discussed, the Ordinance contains definite and reasonable time constraints as well as standards and a structure which effectively foreclose any serious opportunity for content based decisionmak-ing. It does not put before the licensor the authority, information or mechanism by which he could make decisions of direct First Amendment concern. Consequently, the Ordinance does not implicate the kinds of risks which should necessitate a special provision for judicial review.
IV.
Furthermore, I agree with the majority’s conclusion that the place and manner restrictions that the Ordinance imposes on licensed newsstands fall within the limits of constitutional acceptability. For all of the foregoing reasons, I believe that the Ordinance survives facial attack and should be upheld. I therefore concur in the judgment.
. I do not think it is necessary for the majority to reach the question of whether or not there is an independent constitutional right to erect newsstands on public property. Because Chicago did not enact an absolute ban on newsstands and the majority today finds that capping permits at their historical level is a reasonable restriction, passing on this question is not necessary for the resolution of this case. Comment on the nonexistence of such a right may be tempting but is probably unadvised as the issue is by no means settled. Compare Providence Journal Co. v. City of Newport, 665 F.Supp. 107, 112 (D.R.I.1987) (intimating that a total prohibition of newsracks, newsstands and newsboys may be unconstitutional), and City of Lakewood, 486 U.S. at 762 n. 7, 108 S.Ct. at 2147 n. 7 (declining to pass on whether a city may constitutionally prohibit the placement of newsracks on public property), with id. at 780-81, 108 S.Ct. at 2156 (White, J„ dissenting) (stating that there is no First Amendment right to erect newsracks on city streets) and City of Cincinnati v. Discovery Network, Inc.,U.S. -, -, 113 S.Ct. 1505, 1525, 123 L.Ed.2d 99 (1993) (Rehnquist, C.J., dissenting) (same).
. The majority seems to suggest that because newsstands facilitate the distribution of many different publications they are somehow less associated with expression than newsracks which typically only offer for sale a single publication. See ante, at 1316. The majority apparently believes this follows from the fact that shutting down whole newsstands because of displeasure with one publication is a more awkward and less effective means of censoring that publication than targeting its individual newsracks directly. *1328While this observation may buttress an eventual conclusion that Chicago's mechanism for licensing newsstands passes constitutional muster, to conclude that this single characteristic renders the maintenance of newsstands any less conduct intimately tied to expression is fallacious. The result from such a logical leap and its concomitant hasty dismissal of the constitutional dimensions of this case is a failure to consider the full breadth of First Amendment risks occasioned by discretionary control over newsstands. Admittedly, the licensing of newsstands is a clumsy way to censor the Chicago Tribune, but it has the potential to be a honed weapon in a war against the lone operator who insists on including controversial or unpopular publications in his selection. Judge Cummings' dissent succeeds in putting its finger on the panoply of hardly fanciful dangers to free expression that can be the bedfellows of the regulation of even mere newsstands. See post, at 1337-38. These potential dangers must be acknowledged before turning to address the procedural adequacy of Chicago’s licensing system.
. The Commissioner of Public Works (CPW) in his ultimate decision (as well as the Commissioner of Planning when making his recommendation to the CPW and the City Council, if making a recommendation to the CPW) can only consider:
(1) whether the design, materials and color scheme of the newspaper stand comport with and enhance the quality and character of the streetscape, including nearby development and existing land uses;
(2) whether the newspaper stand complies with this Code;
(3) whether the applicant has previously operated a newspaper stand at that location;
(4) the extent to which services that would be offered by the newspaper stand are already available in the area;
(5) the number of daily publications proposed to be sold from the newspaper stand; and
(6) the size of the stand relative to the number of days the stand will be open and operating.
Chicago Mun.Code § 10-28-160(a).
. In FW/PBS, three Justices (Brennan, Marshall and Blackmun) thought that all three Freedman requirements were necessary, see 493 U.S. at 239-42, 110 S.Ct. at 612-13 (Brennan, J., concurring in the judgment), while three (O’Connor, Stevens and Kennedy) were content with just the first two, see id. 493 U.S. at 227-31, 110 S.Ct. at 606-07 (opinion of O'Connor, J.). To justify dropping the third Freedman safeguard, Justice O'Connor distinguished Dallas' ordinance from the licensing systems in Freedman and its progeny on two grounds. She observed, first, that under its ordinance Dallas did not purport to "pass[ ] judgment on the content of any protected speech,” id. 493 U.S. at 231, 110 S.Ct. at 607, unlike the obscenity censors in Freedman et at, and, second, that because Dallas required a license to operate an adult entertainment business at all, "there is every incentive for the applicant to pursue a license denial through the court,” id. All this is of course dicta since six Justices agreed that the ordinance must fall because the other two Freedman requirements did apply and were not satisfied. However, the three who propounded the more narrow reading of Freedman are still on the Court as well as one Justice (Rehnquist) who believed Freedman did not apply at all. See id. 493 U.S. at 243, 110 S.Ct. at 614 (White, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
. Note that the basic problem in Freedman was not unbridled discretion in administrative hands, but the inadequacy of administrative processes in general to demarcate the correct line between protected and unprotected speech. The Court did recognize, however, that these two veiy different shortcomings present a common danger: the risk of oversuppression of speech. See id. 380 U.S. at 57, 85 S.Ct. at 738.
. In Southeastern Promotions, the Court acknowledged that independent of an administrative board’s abilily to correctly categorize speech, it is always necessary that what the administra-five body purports to decide constitutes a constitutionally permissible basis for preventing speech. See Southeastern Promotions, 420 U.S. at 558, 95 S.Ct. at 1246. But because the Court found inadequate procedural safeguards in the case, it did not reach the issue of whether as a substantive matter a production can be kept off a public stage because it is not deemed "culturally uplifting or healthful.” Id. at 558, 561, 95 S.Ct. at 1246, 1247.
.She was writing for three Justices. See supra note 4.