By Buzz Trexler Star Correspondent City Council members on Thursday night heard from a Stoney Creek couple complaining about their neighbors’ bright lights trespassing on their dark sky, and a downtown business owner wanting some light shed on East Elk Avenue’s status during cruise-ins. Toni Winchester and her husband, Jim, told City Council they relocated to the area about five years ago because they were attracted to the rural setting, despite a “top-producing Realtor with RE/MAX refusing to show us any property in Carter County.” The Winchesters eventually bought a house on C.
Grindstaff Road, outside of the city limits in Stoney Creek, and they maintain the neighboring Evening Breeze Arena has installed LED commercial lighting leased from the city electric department that is so bright as to disturb not just the rural darkness, but their life. “Their light penetrates through a window of a bedroom and got into my house, and if I have that bedroom door open it goes down my hallway,” Toni Winchester said as she directed council and staff through handouts she and her husband provided. She said the arena is located about 300 yards away and once had sodium lights, which they accepted, but had recently changed to the LEDs.
It’s not just the arena that has the offending lights, she said, but another neighbor who lives about 200 yards away has them installed. “She has two of these lights on either side of her house,” the woman said. “The light on the northside c.