A federal judge in Newark held on September 24 that the Borough of Lodi, New Jersey cannot enforce its 2025 drone ordinance, which bans drones below 400 feet across the whole town, because the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) already occupies that airspace. Judge Susan D. Wigenton denied Lodi’s motion to dismiss a suit brought by resident Paul Palange, who was written up three times in July 2025 for flying a drone with no camera on it from his own yard.

Palange represented himself. He had no lawyer, and he still got a ruling that the ordinance fails under both field preemption and conflict preemption, one of them the theory that killed Newton, Massachusetts’ drone law in 2017.

He did not get the restraining order he asked for. Lodi told the court he is not in violation of the ordinance. He was served with summonses under it on July 18, 22 and 30, 2025.

Lodi Wrote a 400-Foot Floor Under the FAA’s 400-Foot Ceiling

Lodi adopted Chapter 217, Drones and Unmanned Aircraft, on June 17, 2025 as Ordinance 2025-08. It bans any drone with a camera or sensor below 400 feet anywhere in the borough, and bans sensor-free aircraft below 400 feet over residential and commercial zones, roads, public buildings and parks.

FAA rules cap small drones at 400 feet above ground level. The court put the two side by side: “Read together, those restrictions leave no meaningful altitude band in which a UAS may lawfully operate.” Lodi is 2.27 square miles (5.9 square kilometers) of houses, roads and shops. The carve-out for sensor-free aircraft covers, in practice, nothing.

The ordinance carries fines of up to $500 for a first offense, $1,000 for a second, and $2,000 plus up to 90 days in jail for a third. Its stated purpose is privacy and public safety. Section 217-4D says lawful operation under FAA rules “shall be permitted,” which is the clause Lodi leaned on in court.

The timing is not a coincidence. Lodi sits in Bergen County, one of the counties at the center of the December 2024 drone panic that DroneXL covered in “Debunking the New Jersey drone rumors,” and the borough council passed its ban six months after the sightings that federal agencies later attributed to manned aircraft and hobby drones. Westwood, in the same county, tried the same below-400-foot rule in 2020, and DroneXL reported then that only the FAA regulates that airspace. Lodi did it anyway.

Judge Wigenton Rejected the Privacy Defense and the FAA Savings Clause

The court held the ordinance field preempted because it “in substance dictates where UAS may fly and at what altitude,” core questions of airspace management and aviation safety. Lodi’s privacy rationale failed on the ordinance’s own definitions: Palange’s aircraft has no sensor, so no privacy interest is in play.

Lodi’s fallback was Section 217-4D, the clause permitting FAA-compliant flight. The court rejected it in one sentence: “where Congress occupies a field, even complementary or parallel state regulation is impermissible.” A local law that copies federal law is still a local law regulating federal airspace.

On conflict preemption, the opinion tracks Singer v. City of Newton, the 2017 Massachusetts decision that struck a privacy-framed 400-foot ban as a de facto prohibition. DroneXL’s May 2026 piece on the Olathe, Kansas ordinance walked through the same precedent; Olathe pulled its rule before a judge had to. Lodi did not, and now has a written opinion against it. The ordinance, Wigenton wrote, “stands as an obstacle to the FAA and Congress’s objectives to integrate UAS into the national airspace.”

The opinion is eight pages, marked not for publication, and it is a letter opinion on a motion to dismiss. Palange has shown his claims are plausible and likely to succeed, not won a final judgment. Lodi’s answer and any appeal are still ahead.

The Borough Won the TRO Fight by Saying Its Own Tickets Don’t Count

Palange asked for a temporary restraining order to halt enforcement during the case. Judge Wigenton found he is likely to win on the merits, then denied it for lack of irreparable harm: recreational flying is not protected speech, hobby time can be priced, and Lodi says it is not enforcing.

The First Amendment argument failed because Palange called his flights recreational and never claimed they carry a message. “At most, enforcement of the Ordinance would temporarily limit Plaintiff’s recreational enjoyment,” the court wrote, and that is not expressive conduct. He also did not allege his livelihood depends on the drone.

Then came the borough’s own representation. Lodi told the court that Palange’s FAA-authorized flights are already permitted under the savings clause and that he is not violating the ordinance. The court took Lodi at its word: the record “does not show that Plaintiff faces imminent enforcement,” so any injury is “speculative rather than immediate.” The opinion records that Lodi police visited Palange’s property repeatedly from February through July 2025, served him with the ordinance in court on July 16, and issued three summonses in the two weeks after. What became of those summonses is not in the complaint.

DroneXL’s Take

Lodi told a federal judge that a hobbyist its own police ticketed three times is not in violation of its ordinance, and that concession is why Palange goes home without an injunction. I read that as a borough that knows its ordinance is dead and would rather it die quietly than under a court order. New Jersey’s legislature already settled this in 2018: N.J.S.A. 2C:40-29 preempts any municipal drone ordinance inconsistent with state law, and the state act contains no altitude rules for a town to be consistent with. Lodi’s council passed Chapter 217 seven years after that statute, six months after a drone panic that turned out to be manned aircraft and hobby drones, and it took a resident with no lawyer and no camera on his drone to get the first written finding that the thing is unenforceable. The consequence for every other New Jersey pilot is the useful part. Wigenton’s opinion is not precedent, but it is a federal judge applying Singer v. Newton to a New Jersey town, and the next council that reaches for a 400-foot ban will have to explain why its version survives when Lodi’s did not. Bergen County has 70 municipalities. Check yours.

Sources: Palange v. Borough of Lodi, D.N.J. No. 2:26-cv-02375, Letter Opinion (Sept. 24, 2026), Lodi Code Chapter 217, P.L.2017, c.315

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