City of Burbank v. Lockheed Air Terminal

In City of Burbank v. Lockheed Air Terminal, 411 U.S. 624, 93 S.Ct. 1854, 36 L.Ed.2d 547 (1973), the Supreme Court invalidated ordinances which placed a curfew on jet flights on the basis that pervasive federal regulation gave the Federal Aviation Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency exclusive responsibility for noise control at airports. Id. at 638-40, 93 S.Ct. at 1862-63. Both ordinances passed by the City of Clearwater are clearly noise control ordinances. The curfew ordinance is directly controlled by Burbank and the air traffic ordinance states that it was designed to control noise. Burbank allowed for one possible exception to this rule in situations where a city is the proprietor of the airport. The Supreme Court stated in a footnote: "We do not consider here what limits, if any, apply to a municipality as a proprietor." Id. at 635-36 n. 14, 93 S.Ct. at 1860-1861 n. 14. The Supreme Court did not decide what power a city has as proprietor because the City of Burbank had imposed the curfew pursuant to its police power, not as the proprietor. Id.