My fair city (internationally known for handcuffing and hauling off 90 year old ladies to jail for an unpaid parking ticket) has just passed a lighting ordinance. You cannot spew more than 10 lux off your property or it’s off to the pokey for you (or at least a big fine). In their infinite wisdom, they have also apparently defined the lux as 1 lumen per square FOOT!
At what wavelength / CCT? Can I spew a billion ?lux? of infrared without fear of prosecution?
*F*D*saf8sdfaslkj;aslf Politicians.
PPtk
Edit: And what about car headlights? Can I not turn them on to pull out any more? Do I then get ticketed for driving without headlights? I’d love to see the actual text of this ?law?
What no way how are they and who is they? Police, city, county, state who and how are they planning to accurately measure light? We have some law similar for businesses to keep.l ight polution from ruining it for the star gazers sorry to hear about that really sucks
wow that’s pretty scary! I feel sorry for you
What a crock. Talk about not having any freedom.
1 lumen per square foot = approx. 1 real LUX. That’s not much light. Redefining worldwide accepted SI units again are we?
Was this put in place to stop over-the-top Christmas decorations?
Sorry, just searching for a method to the madness. Usually these stupid laws start out with some small-scale problem, ‘solved’ with a heavy dose of knee-jerk and dumb.
Its yet another fine example of having to many worthless elected officials in government that will concoct absolutely anything to justify their own jobs. How many lumens per square foot does a typical structure fire cast during a moonless night? Maybe we’ll know after people retaliate and the riots start…
I smell subjective measurement, and flashlight bans
Are test tubes still banned?
Awesome they managed to redefine an SI unit. Good luck to the police finding meters that read in local lux instead of the standard. :bigsmile:
Actually the law allows decorations that exceed the limit around the fourth of July and between Thanksgiving and New Years. The original proposal did not allow for that and was delayed. The town is well known for it’s Christmas displays.
Man I would care way more about the people with insanely bright headlights, they can actually be pretty annoying. Or the folks with spot lights on each corner of their house, you know the brilliant minds that want to make it abundantly clear to thieves that they have valuables inside.
edit: Hrmm actually I guess my second example might be the type of people they are targeting, if that is the case I actually kind of understand the reasoning; I have an neighbor who recently put up two spotlights in their backyard and they really annoy me when I’m trying to hang out in my backyard in the dark. Just to sound slightly less weird I like to walk around on my patio at night sometimes in the dark just thinking about stuff, kind of a way to clear my head at the end of a long day.
The yokels are very proud of their little law. They explictly said to expect it to be the model for cities across the country.
It appears the be intended for landscape and other outdoor lighting, but you know how intentions go. Actually, I know a few places where it should do a lot of good. I guess I may have shelve my plans to put up those 10,000 lumen LED streetlights shining into my neighbors humongous new pleasure palace.
No telling what happens when your motion activated security light comes on when some burglar/rapist/neer-do-well shows up in your backyard some midnight dreary. I would not put it past the cops to write you a ticket… they have nothing better to do 99.999% of the time.
Sweet now I can shoot out the annoying light the county put up a few hundred yards from my property. I’ll call it self defense. Seriously the thing bugs the snot out of me. I live a few miles out of town on a county road and because some head honchos built a subdivision back from my road they decided to put up a street light, so they know where to turn. Now this light isn’t close enough to shine on their property but it sure as hell lights mine up. I have a little over an acre and it pretty much covers it. If I sit out in my back yard and roast hot dogs and marshmallows I don’t even need a flashlight to walk around. I bought a house in the country with no neighbors for a reason damn it.
Sadly though I can imagine getting in trouble for shining my flashlights around their subdivision a whole lot faster than them caring that their stinking street light shines all over my property. Big sucker too. I wonder how much that is costing me in taxes? Probably a lot more than my collection of flashlights. I bet it also uses up more energy a night that my flashlights do in a decade. It has to be a thousand watt HID.
Rant over.
Yeah, now you need to put on underwear to do that… bummer.
Just Curious as to how you know he stands on his Back Deck naked ??? 
And we vote these people in. Its no better over here.
What a bunch of rubbish!Are people that bored?I would be screwed for sure because that would give anyone the right to call on me when my big honkin' 6x XML security light goes on,or scanning my yard when I hear noises.
In Texas? Wow…how we have changed. This must be in the Austin/Hill Country area. Many nanny-state lovers out there.
Hard to write a ticket when you just looked into my 3 eyes :cowboy_hat_face:
How does this relate to us flashlight enthusiasts?
Could there be a conspiracy here? This could be some sort of prelude of an attempt by the Federal Government to take high powered flashlights out of the hands of it’s citizens. New York has already banded soft drinks over 16oz! “When flashlights are outlawed, only outlaws will have flashlights”.
Or this could be an attempt by an influential up and coming industrial complex with governmental contacts to get an unfair advantage in the market place for inferior lighting products? I point you to the “Lampe de Poche” thread HERE
At any rate, I think there is little to be concerned by Texans over this. In Texas the powerful NRA will surely have the clout to push through an exemption for high powered lights, as long as they are attached to a weapon!