Team Charter Has Returned Past Curfew 10 Times In Past 1 1/2 Seasons

The San Jose Sharks hockey team is in trouble with their hometown airport over curfew violations the team's charter airline -- Sacramento, CA-based Sky King -- has incurred over the past season and a half. In fact, the airline has wracked up more violations than any other carrier at the airport.

City officials told the Associated Press the team has broken the after-hours noise restrictions at Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport 10 times in the past one-and-a-half seasons, including four times since professional hockey resumed last October.

The curfew restricts all flights taking off and landing at the airport between 11:30 pm and 6:30 am. Violating the curfew carries a penalty a bit more severe than a few minutes in the box: $2,500 per violation. Sky King has amassed more than $20,000 in fines.

The city has even gone so far as to sue the airline in 2004 to end the violations -- but a judge has yet to see the case.

"You’d like to support the Sharks and you’d think the Sharks should support the neighborhoods," said Lenora Porcella, an airport anti-noise activist. "If the Sharks are blatantly violating the curfew and think it’s OK as long as they pay the $2,500 fine, that’s wrong."

Sharks President Greg Jamison said it doesn't mean to break the rule -- but that the team sometimes must break the curfew "to keep a competitive balance" in the league, especially when the team is returning from an away game and has a home game the following day.

"We would like to have the capability of coming and landing in San Jose and not having the extra hour or hour and a half when you come in late at night" and land in Oakland -- which has no curfew, Jamison told the Contra Costa Times last week.

The city says it can't look the other way -- even if it helps the hometeam, which is often returning from games played on the other side of the country.

"The curfew is uniformly applied against all users," City Attorney Rick Doyle said.

Returning home after curfew has been an issue in the past for the team. In 1994, the Sharks applied for an FAA waiver that would have allowed it to break curfew 40 times a year without penalty.

The agency denied the petition, saying it would have discriminated against other airport users. The only times exceptions are granted are for bad weather, or mechanical issues.

FMI: www.sjsharks.com