[holy_city]

I don't think that making a luxury service more expensive will discourage use, unless we can make each flight cost tens of thousands of dollars.

I'd rather just ban assholery than create a steep asshole tax. It doesn't bother me that a few rich people will have to wait in traffic like everyone else (or better - stop traveling for cross-town meetings and take a phone call!).

Leave low altitude flight to emergency services.

[jessriedel]

The point isn't to discourage use per se. The point is to force the entity producing negative externalities to pay for the damages they are incurring. If the business is still economical to run after these costs, it should be run, and the money can be kept to reduce taxes, pay for other noise abatement, etc.

[nickserv]

If it's agreed that the behavior is damaging, why allow it? If you take the slippery slope down, then you could simply pay off any negative behavior like rape or murder.

[jessriedel]

The slipper slope goes in the opposite direction too. All behavior causes damages (negative externalities) to someone somewhere, but we don't outlaw all behavior.

There is a pretty well developed theory of econ & law of when it makes sense to have financial penalties and when it makes sense to have criminal penalties. I don't think I could do justice to it in this comment box, but suffice it to say, "only criminal penalties, no financial ones" is wrong.