Quote:
Originally posted by EMD
"Shutting them all down at 6pm means that a whole lot of capital investment goes up in smoke."
The capital investment will not go up in smoke, the state can not do simple zone away an existing use. It then, technical becomes a "pre-existing non conforming use" and they can not touch it. If they do, through a series of legal acrobatic move, it is then called a "Taking."
A taking is similar to Emanate Domain in so far as the state no longer allows you to use your property in a profitable manner and MUST compensate you for that. For example, let say for the sake of argument that the state is able to limit your play time to dust and you invested $250,000.00 in lighting to play till 10pm. The field authority would lose the money they paid for the lights and future profits off the games played after dust. This would go into arbitration then 2 lawyer and a judge would decide how much you receive. Or go to court. Similar to a balk, there is no appeal. However, I would not be worried for the reasons I posted above.
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EMD;
Your analysis would be correct except for one thing:
95% of the lighted fields that I mentioned are owned by local government agencies and were erected with tax money. They can legally shoot themselves in the foot if they want to. Very few fields are owned by local Little Leagues, etc.
Peter