Santa Clara isn't taking any chances.
With the city playing hosting duties to the milestone Super Bowl 50 on February 7, 2016, Santa Clara has introduced a new law, injecting a half-mile, no-fly-zone drone ban over Levi's Stadium. The law, which actually went into effect September 17, hopes to mitigate any sort of drone threat for the big game.
"Because drones do pose a threat to public safety, that was the catalyst that brought forward this ordinance to the council," Jennifer Yamaguma, public communications manager for the city of Santa Clara, told Government Technology about the law last month. "This is an object that can really lead to a real threat."
In September, a man was arrested for crashing a drone into the stands at the U.S. Open tennis tournament in New York.
That being said, the NFL became the first major U.S. sports league to get permission to use drones last month as well. Still, the Federal Aviation Administration gave the NFL the green light under the conditions that it uses drones to shoot films, documentaries and television spots, but can't film actual games—only being allowed to operate the aircrafts over empty stadiums.
With this being the milestone 50th Super Bowl, one can understand Santa Clara taking these kinds of steps to ensure that Levi's Stadium is kept safe.
Prior to Major League Baseball's 86th All-Star Game this past July, host city Cincinnati reminded fans to not fly drones over its Great American Ball Park. Putting a law into effect, like Santa Clara did, however, seems to have taken that one step further.
