Senators advanced a bill from general file Jan. 19 that would prohibit the sale of flying lanterns.<\/p>\n
LB136, introduced by Wahoo Sen. Jerry Johnson, would make it illegal to sell, possess or use a flying lantern. Johnson said 25 states already have approved such bans in order to protect public safety.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne year ago on New Year\u2019s Eve in Columbus a flying lantern landed within the property of an ethanol plant, which is very explosive,\u201d Johnson said. He also explained that $200,000 in fire damage was done to a house when a lantern landed on its roof.<\/p>\n
The bill defines flying lantern as any device that requires a flame, which produces heated air trapped in a balloon-type covering, allowing the device to float in the air. The bill\u2019s provisions would not apply to hot-air balloons used for transportation.<\/p>\n
Violation of the bill\u2019s provisions would be categorized as a Class V misdemeanor, punishable by a $100 fine.<\/p>\n
Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers supported the bill, saying there are no benefits to allowing the sale of the lanterns.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no compelling state interest in allowing something that is a hazard and has no societal value whatsoever,\u201d he said. \u201cThe invitation to do damage and destruction to property is not something that ought to be approved by the Legislature.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bill was advanced to select file on a 30-0 vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Senators advanced a bill from general file Jan. 19 that would prohibit the sale of flying lanterns. LB136, introduced by<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[109],"class_list":["post-18028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judiciary","tag-sen-jerry-johnson"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18028"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18029,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18028\/revisions\/18029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}