Torrance council declines to amend airport rules, keeps restrictions on touch-and-go operations

Torrance City Council on June 17, 2025 voted to decline a proposed amendment to the city’s airport ordinance that would have relaxed restrictions on touch-and-go, full-stop taxi-backs and low approaches at Torrance Municipal Airport. Councilmember Dante Mateucci moved the motion to reject the amendment and continue defending the existing ordinance; the council carried the motion, with Mayor Tim Chen recorded as voting no and Councilmember Sheikh absent.

The item (agenda 10b) returned to the council after city attorneys presented a draft ordinance negotiated as part of litigation over a 1990 ban on the maneuvers. City Attorney Patrick Sullivan told the council the draft would allow touch-and-go operations Monday–Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturdays 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., and would prohibit them on Sundays and holidays; staff said the proposal grew out of settlement discussions in an ongoing legal dispute and included a scrivener’s correction in the supplemental materials that restored an emergency exemption section.

Why it matters: The change would have reduced blanket…