The coastal town of Gualala, California, was—like last year—a ghost town this past Fourth of July. Prior to 2008, the Gualala Festivals Committee— comprised of a group of local volunteers – would put on an elaborate Independence Day festival culminating in the biggest attraction: a professional fireworks show launched from private property. After the California Coastal Commission got wind of the town’s fireworks show, it demanded a permit application, on the grounds that a 10-minute fireworks display is a “development” requiring a “coastal development permit.”

The Festivals Committee considered the Coastal Commission’s interference absurd, and it refused to cede to the agency’s demands.

Undeterred, the Coastal Commission issued a cease-and-desist order against the Festivals Committee in May, 2008, prohibiting it from having the fireworks show. Without the major event of a fireworks show, Gualala’s Independence Day festival could not go on. So Gualala went dark over the Fourth-of-July holiday in 2008 and again this year, resulting in great financial loss for the community.

But all is not lost. PLF attorneys took the Festivals Committee’s fight for freedom to the courts . While the trial court ruled in the Coastal Commission’s favor earlier this year, PLF attorneys this month filed their appeal to the California Court of Appeal. They will argue that a fireworks display is not a “development” requiring the Coastal Commission’s permission and that, to the contrary, the Festivals Committee should be free to celebrate the birth of this Nation with fireworks— without unreasonable government interference.