Torrance flight school, city settle business license dispute

A Torrance flight school which earlier this year won a preliminary injunction preventing the city from blocking renewal of its license has settled its legal action against the South Bay community.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Curtis Kin issued the injunction ruling on Jan. 12 on behalf of Sling Pilot Academy and had earlier handed down a temporary restraining order against the city. The academy’s attorneys filed court papers with Kin on Tuesday notifying him of a settlement of the case, but no terms were divulged.

The City Council on Dec. 12 denied Sling’s appeal of the decision to not renew its license. However, the academy’s attorneys maintained in their court papers that federal law is clear that only the federal government, and more specifically the Federal Aviation Administration, exclusively regulate flying aircraft.

“The (Sling) petition seeks to remedy an egregious wrong being perpetrated by city to run Sling out of town,” according to the school’s attorneys court papers, which further stated that the city was relying on a 1977 resolution that was never previously enforced that limits the number of flight schools at Torrance Municipal Airport-Zamperini Field to six.

Therefore, federal law preempts any local regulation limiting the number of flight schools, according to the Sling attorneys.

In their court papers filed in opposition to the preliminary injunction, attorneys for the city maintained that any alleged private hardship the academy could face was “outweighed by the strong public policy interest in allowing the city to regulate businesses in its jurisdiction and to abate and prevent harm to the public.”

The school had no legal right to receive approval of a renewed business license, regardless of how many times its license had been previously reissued, the city’s lawyers further maintained in their court papers.

In its petition brought Dec. 18, Sling said it began operations in Torrance in July 2013 and received a letter dated Oct. 24 from city Finance Director Sheila Poisson that its business license would not be renewed because of the six-school limit, the academy lawyers state.

But although Sling is listed as the seventh flight school, it actually is the sixth one because one flight school identified by the city does not actually operate such a business, according to the school’s attorneys’ court papers.

The Sling attorneys further maintain that the City Council “embarked on a campaign to severely limit aircraft flying overhead” because of residents’ complaints and the council’s “hostility to flying aircraft.”