State legislators are debating the merits of a new law that would shut down a flightseeing helicopter operation adjacent to the Cherokee Reservation.

Cherokee Helicopters is popular for its inexpensive three- to five-minute flights. During tourist season and on weekends year round, the chopper is taking off and landing all day to the dismay of nearby residents who say they are disturbed by the incessant noise, dust and gas fumes.

At the urging of residents, N.C. Sen. John Snow, D-Murphy, introduced a bill in the General Assembly that would ban heliports associated with flightseeing operations from locating within 10 miles of the border of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Cherokee Helicopters, which falls within that 10-mile zone, would have two years to relocate or shut down.

Opponents claim the bill would interfere with free enterprise and violate the constitutional right of the helicopter operation to do business. Backers claim the helicopter operation is violating the rights of residents.

“We are starting to ignore our little people out there — people who have owned their homes there their whole lives — and saying this man has a right to do business,” said Snow.

Snow wrote and sponsored the bill and has been shepherding it through the General Assembly.

Snow said it is not right that neighbors cannot sit on their porches or work in their gardens in peace without propellers thwacking overhead all day. They have to keep their doors and windows shut all summer. The neighbors include one 85-year-old woman in poor health and a man recently diagnosed with cancer who are prevented from resting during the day.

Cherokee Helicopters is run out of Tennessee by Great Smoky Mountain Helicopters. The company’s main operation is based near Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. Snow said it is ironic that state legislators would side with a Tennessee business operation over their own residents.

“I hope people realize that this could be their constituents one day we’re trying to get a helicopter off the top of,” Snow said.

All the revenue goes back to the helicopter headquarters in Tennessee and the operation does not generate jobs, Snow said.

A single pilot operates Cherokee Helicopters. When a customer shows up, the pilot locks the small shed-like office and takes the customer up in the air. If there is a line of customers, the pilot goes up and down all day and the office stays closed.

The ultimate hard bargain

Snow said the helicopter does not try to be a good community partner, citing the company’s reaction to a compromise pitched by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

Chief Michelle Hicks met with the helicopter company in August 2004 in hopes of striking a deal to rid tribal residents of the chopper. If the helicopter was located on the Reservation, the tribe could simply pull its business license and kick them out. But Cherokee Helicopters, while surrounded on three sides by the reservation, is under the jurisdiction of Jackson County.

So Hicks instead offered to buy the land from the helicopter company if it would leave the area. The helicopter company told the tribe the two-acre tract would cost $1.5 million, according to supplemental documents filed with bill in the General Assembly.

The helicopter company said that no counter offers would be accepted. They told the tribe they had until midnight on October 29 to accept the $1.5 million deal or the price would go up by $200,000 a day for every day the tribe did not accept the offer, according to the file.

The tribe had no guarantee that the chopper company wouldn’t use the money to buy a new tract of land down the road and continue operating, however.

In addition, Cherokee Helicopters told the tribe if it did not buy the land at the price it sought, then “all agreements regarding how it operates are nullified ... Cherokee Helicopters would conduct its business as it sees fit without regard to complaints,” according to the document on file.

There are no laws governing how low or where a flightseeing helicopter can fly. Only the Federal Aviation Administration can set such policies. But the tribe had a tacit agreement with the company that it would not fly low over people’s houses and that it would attempt to take different routes instead of always flying over the same person’s house or business hour after hour.

Residents say the pilots do not respect the agreement anyway, then or now.

How the law would work

The bill prohibits heliports from locating within 10 miles of the border of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It does not restrict flight, but merely the location of the landing pad. Cherokee Helicopters could relocate outside the 10-mile restricted zone and still fly over Cherokee or over the park. But that would be a longer and more expensive flight than most tourists opt for.

The law would give Cherokee Helicopter until July 2007 to move its operation out of the restricted zone. The law would not apply to medical helicopters, search and rescue helicopters or firefighting helicopters.

The law is identical to one passed by the state of Tennessee in 1992. It was upheld by the Tennessee Supreme Court after M Helicopters challenged it.

Jackson County leaders attempted to regulate the helicopter with a local ordinance restricting its flight, but the ordinance was doomed from the start. Counties have no authority over air space, which is regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration. M Helicopters challenged Jackson’s ordinance and won in court. The Tennessee law — and the proposed North Carolina law — instead regulate the businesses by using land-use or zoning ordinances.

Status of the bill

The bill was debated twice in the Commerce Committee of the House of Representatives this month. Snow, as well as a Jackson County resident who lives near the helicopter, spoke for the bill in front of the committee.

Chip Killian, a Raleigh lobbyist who also serves as Haywood County’s attorney, was hired by the helicopter company to argue against the proposed law in front of the committee and act on the company’s behalf. If passed, the state law would apply in Haywood County as well. Maggie Valley and Jonathan Creek, for example, would fall within the 10-mile zone bordering the park that would become off-limits to heliports serving flightseeing choppers.

Killian argued that the bill is unconstitutional by shutting down an operation that already existed prior to the law’s passage.

The committee was largely split along party lines, with Democrats supporting the bill and Republicans opposing it, according to the minute takers. Due to the legal and constitutional issues raised, the bill was sent to the Judicial Committee for further review. If the Judicial Committee hammers out the free enterprise concerns, the bill could go to the full legislature for a vote.

“We believe our bill is constitutional, but there were some other people there questioning it,” Snow said. “I am going to try to do everything I can to get this bill passed.”